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Contents

Notes on Contributors xi

Introduction
Mark Siderits, Evan Thompson, Dan Zahavi 1

1. The Who and the How of Experience 27

Joel W. Krueger

2. The Experiential Self: Objections and Clarifications 56

Dan Zahavi

3. Nirvana and Ownerless Consciousness 79

Miri Albahari

4. Self and Subjectivity: A Middle Way Approach 114

Georges Dreyfus

5. Self-No-Self? Memory and Reflexive Awareness 157

Evan Thompson

6. Subjectivity, Selfhood and the Use of the Word 'I' 176

Jonardon Ganeri

7. 'I Am of the Nature of Seeing': Phenomenological

Reflections on the Indian Notion of Witness-Consciousness 193
Wolfgang Fasching

8. Situating the Elusive Self of Advaita Vedānta 217

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

9. Enacting the Self: Buddhist and Enactivist Approaches

to the Emergence of the Self 239
Matthew MacKenzie

10. Radical Self-Awareness 274

Galen Strawson

11. Buddhas as Zombies: A Buddhist Reduction of Subjectivity 308

Mark Siderits

Index 333
 Preface

This work represents an attempt to begin a dialogue among philosophers

who are interested in problems to do with the nature of consciousness and the
self, but are situated in differing locations in the philosophical landscape. The
project began with a mini-conference held at Columbia University in March
2008, featuring Georges Dreyfus, Evan Thompson, and Dan Zahavi, as well
as John Dunne, speaking on the topic of the existence of a self and the
question of consciousness' reflexivity. This event was organized by the
Columbia University Seminar on Comparative Philosophy, and we wish to
express our thanks to Chris Kelley, rapporteur for the Seminar, for all he did
to make the event possible. The office of Columbia University Seminars is
also to be thanked for its generous financial support of this and similar
activities.
The event at Columbia represented a dialogue between phenomenology
and Buddhist philosophy. A larger conference was organized by the Center for
Subjectivity Research in Copenhagen in April 2009, featuring an expanded
range of voices: phenomenology and Buddhist philosophy, but also Advaita
Vedânta and analytic philosophy. Many of the papers in this collection first
saw the light of day at this conference. Their present form owes much to the
spirited and stimulating discussion that it sparked and helped foster. This
event was made possible through the generous support of The Danish
National Research Foundation and the Danish Ministry of Science,
Technology and Innovation. We must also express our deep gratitude to Joel
Krueger and Pia Kirkemann for all their help in making the event run
smoothly and successfully.
Editing of this volume was made possible in part thanks to generous
research support from the Korea Research Foundation. Thanks are also due to
Peter Momtchiloff of Oxford University Press for his support, encouragement,
and to Jennifer Lunsford and Angela Anstey‐Holroyd for their able assistance
in shepherding us through the production process.
Notes on Contributors

MIRI ALBAHARI is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University

of Western Australia, where she has held a permanent position since 2006.
She did her MA at the University of Otago (on the metaphysics of colour),
and her PhD in philosophy from the University of Calgary in 2005. Her book,
Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self, is on how the illusion
of self is put together. She hopes to write a follow-up book on how the
Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path, via virtue, meditation, and wisdom, could
dissolve the illusion of self in a way that does not incur the types of pathology
that are predicted by Western neuroscientists.

GEORGES DREYFUS was the first Westerner to receive the title of Geshe
after spending fifteen years studying in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. He then
entered the University of Virginia where he received his PhD. in the History
of Religions program. He is currently Professor of Religion of the Department
of Religion at Williams College. His publications include Recognizing
Reality: Dharmakirti and his Tibetan Interpreters (SUNY Press 1997), The
Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction (co-edited with Sara McClintock,
Wisdom 2003), and The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a
Tibetan Buddhist Monk(University of California Press 2003), as well as many
articles on various aspects of Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan culture.

WOLFGANG FASCHING teaches philosophy at the University of Vienna

(Austria) and is presently working on a project about the nature of experiential
presence. He is the author of Phänomenologische Reduktion und Mushin:
Edmund Husserls Bewusstseinstheorie und der Zen-Buddhismus (Alber 2003).

JONARDON GANERI is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex.

His work is at the border between Indian and analytical philosophy. He has
published three books: The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of Self and
Practices of Truth in Indian Ethics and Epistemology (Clarendon
2007), Philosophy in Classical India: The Proper Work of Reason (Routledge
2001), and Semantic Powers: Meaning and the Means of Knowing in
Classical Indian Philosophy (Clarendon 1999). He is currently working on the
philosophy of mind in classical Indian thought, as well as on the philosophy of
early modern India.

JOEL W. KRUEGER is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Danish National

Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research, University of
Copenhagen. His research interests include issues in phenomenology and
philosophy of mind, Asian and comparative philosophy, pragmatism, and
philosophy of music.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

MATTHEW MACKENZIE is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Colorado

State University. His primary research is in Buddhist philosophy, philosophy
of mind, phenomenology, and metaphysics. He has published in journals such
as Philosophy East and West, Asian Philosophy , and Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences. He is currently co-authoring, with Bradley Park, a book
on enactivism and Asian philosophy.

CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD is Professor in the Department of

Religious Studies at Lancaster University. His research interests include
Indian and comparative epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of
religion. Recent publications include Knowledge and Liberation in Classical
Indian Thought (2001 Palgrave), Advaita Epistemology and Metaphysics: An
Outline of Indian Non-Realism (RoutledgeCurzon 2002), and Indian
Philosophy and the Consequences of Knowledge (Ashgate, 2007).

MARK SIDERITS is currently in the philosophy department of Seoul

National University. He previously taught philosophy for many years at
Illinois State University. He is the author of Indian Philosophy of Language
(Kluwer 1991), Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons
(Ashgate 2003), and Buddhism as Philosophy (Ashgate and Hackett 2007), as
well as numerous articles. His principal area of interest is analytic
metaphysics as it plays out in the intersection between contemporary analytic
philosophy and classical Indian and Buddhist philosophy.

GALEN STRAWSON taught philosophy at the University of Oxford for

twenty years before moving to Reading University in 2001. He has held
visiting positions at NYU (1997) and Rutgers University (2000). Between
2004 and 2007 he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City
University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author of Freedom and
Belief (OUP 1986), The Secret Connexion: Realism, Causation and David
Hume (OUP 1989), Mental Reality (MIT Press 1994), Selves: An Essay in
Revisionary Metaphysics (OUP 2009), and the principal author of
Consciousness and its Place in Nature (Imprint Academic 2006). A selection
of his philosophical papers, Real Materialism and Other Essays, was
published in 2008 (OUP).

EVAN THOMPSON is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.

He received his BA in Asian studies from Amherst College, and his PhD. in
philosophy from the University of Toronto. He is the author of Mind in Life:
Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press
2007), and a co-editor (with P. Zelazo and M. Moscovitch) of The Cambridge
Handbook of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press 2007). He is also a
co-author, with F. J. Varela and E. Rosch, of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive
Science and Human Experience (MIT Press 1991), and the author of Color
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception

(Routledge Press 1995). He is currently working on a new book, titled
Waking, Dreaming, Being: New Revelations about the Self from Neuroscience
and Meditation. Thompson held a Canada Research Chair at York University
(2002–2005), and has also taught at Boston University. He has held visiting
positions at the Centre de Récherche en Epistémologie Appliqué (CREA) at
the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, and at the University of Colorado at
Boulder. He is a member of the Mind and Life Institute's Program and
Research Committee.

DAN ZAHAVI is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Danish

National Research Foundation's Center for Subjectivity Research at the
University of Copenhagen. He obtained his PhD. from Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven in 1994 and his Dr.phil. (Habilitation) from University of Copenhagen
in 1999. He was elected member of the Institut International de Philosophie in
2001 and of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2007. He
served as president of the Nordic Society for Phenomenology from 2001 to
2007, and is currently co-editor in chief of the journal Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences. In his systematic work, Zahavi has mainly been
investigating the nature of selfhood, self-consciousness, and intersubjectivity.
His most important publications include Husserl und die transzendentale
Intersubjektivität (Kluwer 1996), Self-awareness and Alterity (Northwestern
University Press 1999),Husserl's Phenomenology (Stanford University Press
2003), Subjectivity and Selfhood (MIT Press 2005), and, together with Shaun
Gallagher, The Phenomenological Mind (Routledge 2008).
 Introduction
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

When I see a bright blue sky and hear the wind stirring the leaves, there is
awareness of the blue color and the rattling sound. Is there also the awareness
of my seeing the blue and hearing the sound? Does being conscious
necessarily involve being self-conscious in some sense? And if it does, would
this count as evidence for the existence of a self? These are the sorts of
questions that the papers in this volume are meant to explore. The
explorations embarked on here employ tools and techniques drawn from a
number of distinct philosophical traditions: phenomenology, analytic
philosophy of mind, and classical Indian and Buddhist philosophy. While
these traditions have all investigated the questions of the self and the reflexive
nature of awareness, they have for the most part done so independently of one
another. So it might be best to begin by attempting to develop a common
framework within which to locate the different approaches they employ.
To ask whether, when I am aware of blue I am also aware of my
awareness of blue, is to ask whether consciousness is necessarily reflexive or
self-intimating. To use the latter expression is to do two things: to suggest that
being conscious is a matter of being intimate or ‘in touch’, of bringing the
object into proximity with the self understood as what is ‘within’, and to invite
the question whether the reflexivity at issue involves anything that might
properly be called my self. To start with the second point: it might be said that
consciousness' being reflexive would be no different than a statement's being
self-referential. The statement ‘This sentence contains five words’ can be
described as reflexive just in the sense that in assessing its truth we need look
at nothing else besides the very statement itself. In this case the reflexivity of
the reference relation is nothing more than this binary relation's involving not
the normal two relata but just one. If the thesis that consciousness is reflexive
or self-intimating were understood this way, there would be no suggestion that
the thesis is at all connected to the claim that there is a self. To think it is
would be to conflate the quite distinct expressions ‘myself’ and ‘my self’.
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

Some will welcome such a diagnosis, since it would mean that we can
investigate the reflexivity thesis without having to enter into the murky
question of the self's existence and nature. Among them will be those who
deny the existence of a self on other grounds. But some will find this
dismissal all too quick. They will claim that what we find when we carefully
scrutinize the self-intimating nature of our states of awareness is quite
different from the simple self-linking exhibited by self-referential statements
and the like. If it is true that consciousness is aware of itself not just in bouts
of introspective reflection but always, then perhaps this serves as a clue to the
nature of subjectivity and hence of the subject. The idea is that a careful
investigation of the self-intimating nature of consciousness will bring into
clearer focus the phenomenal character of experience, thereby allowing us to
discern an otherwise elusive common element in all our conscious states. It is
widely held that what is distinctive about experiential states is their ‘what-it-
is-like-ness’ or phenomenal character: there is something it is like to be in the
state of seeing that blue color, and it is the presence of this phenomenal
character that marks the difference between a sentient being and a mere color-
detection mechanism. The present suggestion is that the reflexivity of
consciousness is at least partly constitutive of what-it-is-like-ness, and that
this in turn tells us something important about that for which it is so like, the
subject of phenomenal states.
Critics may still have their doubts. The suggestion just mooted involves
what can be described as a move from subjectivity to subject, and one might
question the legitimacy of such a move. One might agree that what is
distinctive about consciousness is precisely its subjective or phenomenal
character, its ‘what-it-is-like-ness’, yet wonder why this should require us to
supply something to serve as the subject to which the seemings are presented.
Even if it is granted that ‘what-it-is-like’ demands completion with a dative—
‘what-it-is-like-for’—it might still be said that the reflexive nature of
consciousness allows us to fill that slot without invoking anything that could
be called a self. For, such a critic would insist, the consciousness whose self-
intimation is at least partly constitutive of the experience of seeing blue, can
play that role for that experience, while another consciousness fills a similar
role for the experience of hearing the rattling of the leaves. These being
distinct episodes of consciousness, the move to a self as unifying subject of
distinct experiences is illegitimate.
 INTRODUCTION

This little debate brings out something that might have seemed obvious all
along: that before we can investigate a possible linkage between the thesis that
consciousness is reflexive and the question of the existence of a self, we must
enter the murky waters and clarify just what a self might be. The parties to the
above debate hold what are sometimes called egological and non-egological
views of consciousness respectively. But what is this ‘ego’ or self about
whose possible involvement in and disclosure through consciousness and self-
consciousness they are debating? It is generally agreed that each of us has a
sense of self: the (perhaps somewhat elusive) feeling of being the particular
person one is. It might seem that the best way to answer the present question
would be by exploring this sense and trying to find its underlying structure.
And much of the Western philosophical discussion of the issue has followed
this path. But the Indian tradition suggests otherwise. Indian philosophical
investigations of the self begin with the suspicion that the sense of self that
everyone seems to have might be importantly mistaken—indeed that this
might be the cause of our being bound to the wheel of saṃsāra or
beginningless rebirth. So while our commonly acknowledged sense of self
might be worth investigating, we should not assume that doing so will lead
directly to an understanding of what the self is.
A word might be in order at this point concerning the soteriological
concerns that stand behind much of the Indian philosophical tradition. In this
tradition it is often claimed that one should study philosophy in order to
overcome the ignorance that results in bondage to a cycle of potentially never-
ending rebirths: philosophy will help us find whatever truth lies behind our
possibly mistaken views about our identity. Since very few philosophers today
subscribe to the view that we are trapped on a wheel of saṃsāra, this fact
about the Indian context might make it seem implausible that there could be
much fruitful dialogue between the Indian and Western traditions on the topic
of the self. But this response might be over-hasty. For it might be that at least
some of the concerns that motivate discussions of the self in the Western
tradition are, at bottom, similar in nature. To look for the self is to look for
what might be thought of as the essence of the person. And essences are often
thought to determine what something is good for. Knowledge of the self is
sometimes sought because of the promise that such knowledge might help
resolve concerns about the meaningfulness of the lives of persons. Now, such
concerns might be thought to stem from the realization of human finitude.
And those Indian philosophers who see persons as subject to a process of
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

rebirth that is without beginning and possibly without end seem to be denying
human finitude. But this overlooks two points: rebirth also means re-death,
and endless repetition can drain things of all meaning. While the ethical
dimension is often left out of current discussions of the self, it might be an
unacknowledged presence that helps shape the debate all the same. That
Indian philosophers explicitly thematized this dimension might actually give
their deliberations added value.
Initially we might classify views about the self as falling into three broad
types: substantialist, non-substantialist and non-self theories. While non-self
theorists deny the existence of a self, substantialist and non-substantialist self
theorists affirm its existence but disagree about its nature. A substantialist
view is one that takes the self to be a substance or property-bearer, the
substrate in which different properties are all located at one time or, for
substances thought to persist, at different times. Taking as a model the
common-sense idea of a thing as an entity that bears a variety of qualities,
substantialist theorists see the self as at least minimally the subject of
experience, that entity to which conscious states are given. It may then be
asked whether the self ever occurs devoid of the property of being conscious.
Descartes is generally understood to have claimed not, thereby committing to
the view that we are conscious even in dreamless sleep and when comatose.
Others hold instead that consciousness is but one of a variety of properties that
the self bears at different times. Among its other properties are typically those
that also make the self the agent of actions, and thus a fit object of moral
appraisal. But the key point for our present concerns is that, according to one
form of substantialist view, consciousness stands to the self as red color does
to the pot: as a quality to a substance in which it contingently inheres.
Non-substantialist self theorists hold that the self is not a substance or
property-bearer standing in relation to a consciousness that is in some sense
distinct from it. (Note that even a substantialist who holds that the self is
essentially conscious, while claiming that the self never fails to be conscious,
thinks of the self as a substance, with consciousness as its essential nature—
hence belonging to a distinct ontological category from that of consciousness.)
Instead the non-substantialist sees the self as just consciousness itself. Non-
substantialists disagree over just how many selves there are, with the Indian
school of Advaita Vedānta famously claiming that there is just one (and that
this is the only thing there is). But they agree that the self is something that is
just of the nature of consciousness, and that we are mistaken in attributing
 INTRODUCTION

agency, or any other property that might involve variation, to the self. The self
is just ‘the witness’, or perhaps better, ‘a witnessing’.
It is open to such self theorists (as it also is to substantialists) to claim that
the self is momentary, coming into existence with each occurrence of
cognition in a mental stream and then going out of existence, ordinarily to be
replaced by another. But self theorists have largely avoided anything like
Galen Strawson's ‘pearl self’ view, according to which a self lasts only as long
as does an individual state of consciousness. This avoidance stems at least in
part from widespread agreement that, in addition to serving as the subject of
conscious states, a self should also explain various diachronic unities. These
unities might include that of a person across different stages in a life (or even
across lives), and that involved in agency for projects that unfold over time.
But the central unity involved in these discussions is the unity involved in the
ability of an experiencer to place the current content of consciousness
alongside past and potential future contents in a single stream. It is of course
possible for a non-substantialist self theorist to claim that all such diachronic
unities can be accounted for without supposing the self to persist. In doing so,
however, they would be moving closer to the non-self view.
While the non-self view is hardly unknown in the West (where its best
known champions are Hume and Parfit), it has been most extensively explored
in the Indian Buddhist tradition. In that context it begins with the common
concern that our ordinary sense of self is the source of a certain sort of deep-
seated suffering. But rather than say that our mistake lies in identifying with
the wrong thing (e.g. the body), or the wrong kind of thing (e.g. a substance),
it locates the error in identification as such. Buddhist monastic practice is
generally aimed at eradication of all identification or ‘appropriation’
(upadāna). Buddhist philosophical practice contributes to this by attempting
to prove that there is no entity that might serve as the referent of ‘I’, and to
explain how the belief that there is such an entity might have arisen. Various
strategies are used in different schools, but one common element is an attempt
to show that nothing persists in the way that a self would presumably have to.
Like Hume, Buddhist philosophers typically point to the fleeting nature of all
we find when we carefully observe the inner states of the person. That we
should nonetheless believe there to be a persisting subject of those states is
explained by the example of the row of ants: what from a distance seems to be
a single enduring thing turns out on closer examination to be a large collection
of distinct things each of which is replaced by a new member at the next
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

moment. The claim is that the ‘I’ is posited to explain the felt unity among the
inner states, when that feeling of unity can instead be explained by appeal to
our cognitive limitations: there seems to us to be a single thing, the row of
ants, only when we look from afar.
This kind of approach to defending the non-self view might be criticized
in a variety of different ways. One might, for instance, challenge the
assumption that the self must persist, or one might argue that wholes such as
the row of ants do exist as persisting things even as their parts are replaced.
Perhaps more fundamentally, one might ask whether the search for the self
should be construed as the search for an entity of any kind. There is an activity
that is commonly called ‘seeking one's self’, and this is not the search for
some entity, but for some core set of convictions and other dispositions that
gives structure and unity to one's life-plans and projects. In recent discussions
of the self, the concept of a narrative self has figured prominently, and that
concept may be useful here. The basic idea is that as agents acting in the
world in time, we require some scheme for fitting individual affordances into
an overall hierarchy that facilitates prioritizing our responses. This is provided
when we view our lives as narratives that we are simultaneously living out
and making up. By viewing ourselves as both the author and the central
character in the story of our lives, we achieve the ability to formulate long-
term plans and projects, work out subordinate goals, and thus avoid paralysis
each time we are presented with a new opportunity for action. If this is true of
us, it would explain why the question of personal identity is so commonly
taken not as the question of the necessary and sufficient conditions for
diachronic identity of persons, but instead as the characterization question:
‘Who am I?’ understood as a request for an account of core values and
commitments. This leads to the question whether the search for the self should
not be understood as just the attempt to answer the characterization question.
If so then the non-self theory might be readily dismissed on the grounds that it
is simply asking the wrong question.
To this challenge, the non-self theorist will respond that to simply
acquiesce in the characterization question is to leave untouched its underlying
presupposition: that there is an entity that is both the author and the central
character in one's life-story. It is this presupposition that requires proper
philosophical scrutiny, using the tools of metaphysical inquiry. Is there a core
self that might fill the role marked out for it by the characterization question?
Indeed, it is not just the non-self view that is threatened by a narrative self-
 INTRODUCTION

constitution approach to the self. Non-substantialist self theories are as well.

While such theories affirm the existence of a self, the self they affirm is just a
witness and not an agent, and hence not the sort of thing that could be an
author or play its assigned role in a proper narrative. Only substantialist self
theories supply the kind of self that could serve to flesh out this
presupposition of the narrativity approach. Both non-self theorists and non-
substantialist self theorists attack substantialism on precisely this point. In
their eyes the narrativity approach reflects commitment to a certain set of
values and a certain social structure. The idea is that we learn to see our lives
as narratives because this turns out to be an efficient way to promote such
goals as rational autonomy and harmonious social interaction. Seen in this
light, the notion of the self as author and central character of a narrative
begins to look like it might be no more than a useful fiction, something we
take to exist only because its posit is required in order to make coherent a
certain way of life.
In the Indian context, the upshot of all this is that the debate over the
existence and nature of the self was fought out on straightforwardly
metaphysical grounds. For instance, both non-self theorists and non-
substantialists argued, along familiar lines, that the general concept of a
substance as property-bearer is incoherent. And of course substantialists had
things to say in reply to such objections. There were, likewise, pitched battles
over the problem of the one and the many: does the whole exist over and
above its many parts, whether as identical with, or distinct from, those parts?
One might wonder whether such debates do not inevitably end in deadlock, so
that there is reason to question the assumptions that generate them. The
relevant assumption here is that our practice of construing our lives as self-
authored narratives requires the existence of a self that might serve as author
and the bearer of other properties. Why not simply acquiesce in that practice
and put our philosophical tools to work trying to clarify the characterization
question? If we are to do metaphysics at all, why not just do descriptive
metaphysics, metaphysics that disallows significant revisions in our
conception of ourselves and our place in the cosmos? On this construal, the
narrativity approach reflects a deep-seated disillusionment with the classical
philosophical project. It sees the search for the self understood as an entity as
hopelessly confused: given the failure of that search to reach any agreed-upon
solution, we should instead think of the self as an ongoing process of self-
constitution.
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

Here is one point where the soteriological/ethical dimension to the Indian

debate over the self becomes relevant. The parties to that debate refused to
rule out a priori the possibility that our ordinary sense of self might be based
on an error. One thing this brings out is the fact that some of the intuitions at
work in the debate over the self might derive from unexamined value
commitments. In choosing to carry out the debate as a purely metaphysical
one, in not acquiescing in the pure narrativity approach, the Indian
philosophers expressed the hope that philosophical rationality might enable us
to settle the dispute on objective grounds. Perhaps one can justifiably dismiss
such hope as naive. But even so it is still important that one be aware that one
is doing so, and on precisely what grounds.
There are, then, four general types of answer one might give to the
question, what is the self: substantialist, non-substantialist, non-self, and pure
narrativity. In the case of the reflexivity thesis things are a little simpler.
Either one affirms that in being conscious one is always in some sense aware
of being so, or else one denies this. Indeed, if we confine our attention to
recent discussions, it might seem as if there is really just the affirmative view,
and all the action is in trying to work out how such self-cognizing occurs. The
reflexivity thesis has many distinguished proponents in the Western tradition
(beginning, according to some, with Aristotle), and although controversial
currently enjoys widespread acceptance. This may stem from a certain
conception of what makes a mental state a conscious state. If, for instance, one
defines consciousness in terms of representation, this seems to let in too
much: there are states of an organism that we might say represent its
environment for that organism, yet we are reluctant to call such states
conscious, since they seem to lack the right sort of interiority or subjectivity,
of what-it-is-like-ness. The firing of the right neurons in the frog's fly-
detection mechanism could be said to represent to the frog the presence of a
fly in its visual field, yet we might be unwilling to say there is something it is
like for the frog to see the fly. Hence the attractiveness of high-order theories,
according to which conscious states are those mental states that are the objects
of higher-order monitoring. What is debated is whether such monitoring is
best thought of as perception-like in its directness, or as mediated by thought
in some fashion. The difficulty for this approach is that the concept of higher-
order monitoring suggests that it is in relation to a distinct state that a given
state is a conscious state. This conflicts with the widely held intuition that
consciousness is an intrinsic property. If it is also held that all conscious states
 INTRODUCTION

involve what-it-is-likeness, whatever cognition achieves the awareness of the

conscious mental state must be somehow intrinsic to that very state itself.
Hence the attraction of self-representation theories, according to which a
conscious state is one that represents itself in the right way. (It should be
noted that this approach has both higher-order and single-order formulations.)
It is of course true that sometimes in states of introspective reflection we take
our mental states as objects. (To use the current terminology, an introspective
state is ‘thetically’ aware of its target mental state.) Such introspective
reflection might be thought of as involving two distinct mental states, one as
target and the other as what achieves the awareness of the target. The claim of
the reflexivity thesis is different. It is the claim that every cognition has, as
part of its very structure, an at least tacit or non-thetic awareness of itself as
cognizing its object. It is this thesis—that consciousness is self-intimating—
that is widely accepted in current discussions.
The reflexivity thesis was actively debated in the Indian philosophical
tradition. It was generally agreed that we are sometimes aware of our own
conscious mental states, for example in introspective reflection. The question
was how this is possible. The two possible answers are: by other-illumination,
and by self-illumination. The view of other-illumination theorists is that when
there is such reflective awareness of a cognition, it is achieved by a distinct
monitoring cognition. While any cognition may be cognized, not every
cognition actually is: it is only in states of introspective reflection that one is
aware of one's conscious states themselves, as opposed to the objects of those
states. Self-illumination theorists agree that the typical case of introspective
reflection involves two distinct cognitions. But they hold that this sort of
explicit (thetic) awareness of one's own cognitions is only possible because
every cognition is tacitly or non-thetically conscious of itself in being
thetically aware of its object. Cognitions are necessarily reflexively aware.
Various arguments were given in support of each side of this debate.
Other-illumination theorists appealed to a widespread anti-reflexivity
intuition, to the effect that an entity cannot perform an operation on itself: a
knife cannot cut itself, a fingertip cannot touch itself, and even the most
skilled acrobat cannot stand on their own shoulders. Self-illumination theorists
argued that cognizing a past cognition involves memory, and one cannot
remember what one did not experience, so in order to avoid an infinite regress
one must suppose that the past cognition was cognizant of itself at the time of
its occurrence. The operative metaphor of cognition as illumination itself fed
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

the debate. Self-illumination theorists pointed out that the lamp that
illuminates the objects in the room is itself illuminated. Other-illumination
theorists responded that it makes no sense to say that light is illuminated: to be
the sort of thing that might be illuminated, something must also be such that it
can exist in the dark, and light cannot exist in the dark. But the use of the
illumination metaphor suggests an answer to a different question: why did this
debate take place in the Indian tradition while the issue has not been much
discussed in modern Western philosophy? One suggestion is that this has to
do with the status of representationalist theories of perception in the two
traditions. More specifically, the suggestion is that when representationalist
theories of perception come to be widely accepted, they bring with them a
view of consciousness that may make the reflexivity thesis appear self-
evident.
The conceptual resources available to us to explain just what
consciousness is are extremely limited. To be conscious, we may say, is to be
aware, to be awake, to cognize, but these are all just near-synonyms. In these
circumstances, a widely used metaphor may play an important role in guiding
our thought along certain lines. When we think of consciousness in terms of
the notions of disclosure or intimation, we may be thinking of it as what
brings the outside world within. The metaphor of illumination suggests
something different. Illumination is something that takes place outside. When
I turn on the light in the room, the illuminated objects stay where they are,
apart from me. But now that they are illuminated I can see where they are, and
what they are, and can put that information to use. Illumination makes them
available to me as items of use. This metaphor would be perfectly acceptable
to someone who held a direct realist theory of perception. It would fit in with
a conception of perceiving according to which consciousness goes out in the
world by way of the sense organs and grasps objects as they themselves are.
Of course the metaphor is also acceptable to someone who thinks of
perception along representationalist lines: consciousness is then what
illuminates the inner theater of the mind, thereby making visible the image of
the object that has been fashioned by the sense organs and brought into the
theater. While direct realist theories of perception do have their supporters,
they do not enjoy the broadest support today; the representationalist picture is
thought by many to better cohere with what we now know about perceptual
processing and the properties of physical objects that are involved in that
processing. But classical Indian philosophers engaged in a spirited debate over
 INTRODUCTION

direct realism and its rivals (representationalism and subjective idealism). And
to a direct realist it is not obvious that all conscious states have a subjective
character. For them, to be conscious is just to have a state that represents the
object.
If this is right, it will come as no surprise that among the Indian self
theorists, it was the substantialists who held the other-illumination view.
Substantialists see the self as ontologically distinct from consciousness. If
what consciousness does is represent the object, then it may no longer seem
mandatory to hold that conscious states have a subjective character. If that to
which conscious states represent the object is a self, then given that the self is
distinct from those states, it seems possible that the self might be informed
about the object without being informed about the state whereby it came to
have that information. Of course Descartes was a substantialist, and is widely
taken to have held the self-illumination view. But Descartes also held that the
self is essentially conscious. This, together with his embrace of a
representationalist theory of perception, push him in the direction of the
metaphor of intimacy or presencing, whereby one cannot fail to be conscious
of what is closest and most immediately present. Other substantialists, by
making consciousness a contingent property of the self, leave the door open to
holding that the self is only occasionally aware of its cognitive activity (just as
it is only occasionally aware of its activity of adjusting the posture of the
body).
Non-substantialism quite naturally lines up with the self-illumination
view. The case of the non-self view is more complicated. Hume seems to have
held the reflexivity thesis (see Treatise I.iv.2.37, 137), but most Buddhist
schools are other-illuminationist. The exceptions are two schools that affirm
representationalist and subjective idealist accounts of perception respectively.
This could be taken as additional evidence concerning the role of indirect
theories of perception in suggesting a model of consciousness that is
supportive of the reflexivity thesis. More important to our present purposes,
however, is the question how these self-illuminationist non-self theorists
distinguish their view from that of a non-substantialist self-illumination
theorist who holds that the self is momentary. Buddhist self-illuminationists
are of course concerned to maintain the Buddhist orthodoxy that there is no
self, but if every occurrence of consciousness grasps itself in grasping its
object, why does that not make such an occurrence a plausible candidate for
the role of referent of ‘I’? Buddhists generally insist that our concept of the
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

self is that of a persisting entity, but why not suppose that it is this belief, and
not the belief in a self, that is in error? The Buddhist self-illuminationist's
answer is interesting. They claim that the concept of the self is necessarily the
concept of a subject of experience. But, they maintain, the distinction between
subject and object of experience, while necessary for thought, is nonetheless a
conceptual superimposition that distorts the nature of reality. When it is
correct to say ‘It is raining’, it would be a mistake to suppose that the state of
affairs that makes this sentence true includes an agent that performs the
activity of raining. The ‘it’, we say, is supplied just to meet the demands of
syntax. In reality there is just the single event of raining, which our grammar
then represents in terms of a two-component model. The claim is that the
demand for a distinct subject and object in experience is similar. If this is
right, then it is the non-substantialist theory that collapses into the non-self
view, and not the other way around.
Indian theorists were careful to keep separate the questions how cognition
is cognized and how the self is known to exist. While Descartes' Second
Meditation would have it that in thetic awareness of our own awareness we
are directly acquainted with the self, other views are possible. A substantialist
might hold that, in general, in perceiving a quality of a substance one
perceives that substance, or they might instead hold that, at least in certain
cases, some further cognitive operation is required in order to cognize the
substance that bears that quality. So a self-illuminationist substantialist could
hold that, while we are always directly aware of our cognitions, the self is
cognized only through introspection, or by inference or abduction. Similar
complexities attend the non-self view: one might, for instance, hold that a
cognition cognizes itself, yet still insist that further inquiry is needed to
ascertain that the occurrence of cognition is not evidence for the existence of a
self. Only in the case of self-illuminationist non-substantialism does there
seem to be a particularly tight connection between the answers to the two
questions. If one takes the self to be nothing but cognition, then one will
naturally think of reflexive awareness as cognition of the self. But since
reflexive awareness could not by itself tell us whether the cognition being
cognized endures, if the self is thought to be persisting, then once again
additional evidence is needed to make the identification go through.
The cogito was not, for instance, unknown to Indian philosophers. But unlike
Descartes, Indian self-theorists did not take it to make their case for them.
Their suspicions concerning the ubiquitous I‐sense held them back.
 INTRODUCTION

One way of trying to circumvent some of these difficulties might be to

shift from the straightforwardly metaphysical question of the self's existence
and nature to the epistemological question of how one comes to have
knowledge of oneself and one's states. There has been much recent discussion
of the phenomenon commonly called immunity from error through
misidentification. We are of course prone to all sorts of errors in our self-
ascriptions. I may, for instance, think of myself as kind and gentle when in
fact I'm a miserable wretch. Carefully constructed experiments demonstrate
that it is even possible, at least in laboratory settings, to induce mistakes about
how one is moving one's own hand. It is claimed, however, that one cannot be
mistaken in attributing a given conscious state to oneself. If I have the feeling
as of its being cold in the room, then I cannot be mistaken as to whether this is
how I represent the room as being. If the reflexivity thesis is true, this might
go some way toward accounting for such immunity from error. To say of a
cognition that it is self-intimating would seem to be to say precisely that its
presentation of its content is something about which there could be no
mistake. If this guarantee could then be extended to also cover the sense that
the current presenting is in some way unified with other presentings, the way
might be open to justifying some sort of self theory, while avoiding the murky
metaphysical depths. This approach will meet resistance, though, from those
who reject the claim that phenomenal character is the hallmark of
consciousness. For those who do not already accept the notion that there is
necessarily something it is like to be in a conscious state, the so-called
immunity from error will be no more informative than the sign that announces
‘You are here’, unaccompanied by a map or any other source of information
about one's location. And, it will be claimed, if the reflexivity thesis is
uninformative it can do no work in settling the dispute over the existence and
nature of the self.
At this point we can glimpse the convergence of several lines of support
for a pure narrativity approach, one that eschews recourse to strictly
metaphysical considerations in defending a self. One line of support derives
from the sense that the metaphysical approach leads nowhere: such questions
as whether the whole exists over and above the parts—so that a self might be
the emergent product of a dynamically interactive aggregate—appear to be
irresolvable. This might be taken to suggest that some other approach is
necessary. Another line of support stems from the fact that the notion of a
narrative self seems to capture much that is important in the sense of self most
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

people possess. In particular, it brings to the fore the link between self and
well-being: living well is thought to require that one's life be seen as having a
trajectory, a narrative arc. Metaphysical approaches, even those that affirm a
self, can at best be only half-hearted in their defense of this requirement; often
they are downright dismissive, calling the narrative self a mere useful fiction.
Yet another line of support derives from the fact that the reflexivity thesis,
with its affirmation of interiority, makes possible the sort of rich inner life at
the heart of the narrativity approach. The thought here is that even if the
reflexivity thesis fails to deliver convincing evidence that the self exists, it
does secure an inner dimension to human existence, and with it the possibility
of richly meaningful lives. The convergence of these lines of support does not
constitute a proof that the narrative approach is the right one to pursue. But it
may give us a better sense of what a total package might look like at this end
of the continuum. And this may in turn clarify what lies at the other end, as
well as what the range of intermediary positions could look like.
The papers in this volume reflect a variety of stances on this fundamental
question of whether the metaphysical approach is a viable one for philosophy,
or one that should be replaced by the (more modest?) project of working from
within human experiential reality and trying to limn its structures. Each takes
up a position in the continuum of possible views and combinations of views.
The first essay in this collection, by Joel Krueger, argues in favor of a non-self
theory that accepts the reflexivity thesis. The argument begins with a survey
of rival views that will serve as a useful introduction to themes explored by
many other papers in this volume. To be rejected, Krueger claims, are views
that deny the reflexivity thesis, since these are unable to account adequately
for the phenomenal character of consciousness. But this leaves in place a
variety of rival views, all charging that subjectivity requires a subject—that
there must be a self for which things seem a certain way—and thus that a non-
self theory is to be rejected. Krueger chooses the egological view of Dan
Zahavi as his chief target. Krueger uses an investigation of the notion of
narrative selfhood to show how one might plausibly arrive at Zahavi's idea of
the minimal self as the form of self-theory that is best supported by careful
consideration of phenomenality. Narrative approaches, Krueger argues, can
answer the characterization question, but not the identity question; they cannot
supply the sort of self that seems required if we are to at all explain our ability
to look for a story in our lives. What the careful consideration of phenomenal
character can support is a minimal self, the subject whose existence is
 INTRODUCTION

allegedly disclosed in and through the reflexive nature of consciousness. The

difficulty is that if we are to avoid going beyond the evidence of that
disclosure, we could at best say that in each of my experiences I am aware of
a self; to call them all my self is to go beyond the evidence by identifying each
as part of a persisting stream. Krueger suggests, in other words, that the
evidence of phenomenal character could only support a non-substantialist
view, and that such a view lacks the resources to establish the needed
permanence and stability that would keep it from collapsing into a non-self
position.
The problem for the self-theorist might be put as one of supplying a self
that is both transcendent and contentful. Substantialist views are good at
supplying the transcendence. Substances as property-possessors necessarily
transcend their properties. They thereby make it possible to understand
diachronic identity over change in those properties. The problem with seeing
the self as a substance comes when we try to specify the evidence for
diachronic identity. The appeal of narrativity approaches stems in large part
from the fact that they suggest where to look for an answer: the owner of the
present experience is the same substance as the owner of those past
experiences because these characteristics are related in the right way to those
characteristics. The difficulty lies in saying how any relation between the
characteristics had by one thing at one time and those of another thing at
another time could establish that the two things are identical. Krueger's
objection to Zahavi's minimal self theory is that in trying to avoid the well-
known difficulties that attend the transcendence of the substantialist view, it
loses its grip on identity.
Dan Zahavi's paper is his response to this sort of challenge, one that has
been leveled by a number of critics. What he calls the experiential core self is,
he claims, something of which one is immediately aware in the self-givenness
that characterizes all conscious states. His fundamental challenge to his critics
is to explain how there could be subjectivity without a subject. His specific
interlocutors in this essay are Miri Albahari and Georges Dreyfus. Both share
Zahavi's endorsement of the reflexivity thesis, but reject his notion of an
experiential or core self, albeit on slightly different grounds. For Albahari,
Zahavi's core self is too thin to count as a self, since it lacks the crucial
features of being unconstructed but bounded: of being something that can
serve as author of narrative constructions, and that accounts for one's sense of
distinctness from other persons. Zahavi responds that what is actually
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

disclosed in experience is not something existing distinct from all experiential

content, but instead just a uniform structure that is common to all my
experiences: their being given as mine. To disqualify this as a self is to impose
the demand that a self be something that transcends all experience; it
overlooks the possibility that the self might actually be given in experience,
just not in the way in which the object is given. He also points out that
Albahari's own view, which she calls a non-self view, actually looks rather
like the sort of non-substantialist self theory that affirms an enduring witness
consciousness. And he wonders how a non-self theorist could maintain that
while the self does not exist, it appears to the uninformed as though it does:
how can things seem a certain way without there being someone for whom
they so seem?
While Albahari could say that her witness consciousness allows her to
answer this question, Dreyfus might be somewhat more hard pressed, since
his credentials as a non-self theorist seem unimpeachable. If he agrees that
phenomenal character is inextricably bound up with the self-givenness of
consciousness, how can he refuse the label ‘self’ to this feature of
subjectivity? Dreyfus might respond that the reflexivity that characterizes all
consciousness only pertains to individual conscious states, which are
impermanent. Zahavi has several replies. First, phenomenological
investigation discloses a temporal dimension to individual conscious states, so
that present-moment awareness inevitably involves awareness of past and
future. Second, the concept of the self is multifaceted and multidimensional,
and the concept of the core self is meant to capture just one key aspect. His
warnings against trying to impose a univocal definition of self suggest that he
shares some of the narrativity approach's impatience with the demands of the
metaphysician.
In her contribution to this volume, Miri Albahari describes her position as
a non-self theory that affirms the reflexivity thesis. But, given its affinities
with the Advaita Vedānta position, it is not entirely clear whether her view
might not better be thought of as a kind of non-substantialist self theory. She
is, in any event, quite explicit in her rejection of any bundle-theoretic version
of non-self. Bundle theorists maintain that our sense of self is illusory insofar
as it represents as a unified entity what is, in fact, merely a bundle of discrete
things. Bundle theorists thus maintain that the self that we routinely take
ourselves to be is constructed out of elements found in experience, yet would
also have to exist prior to such construction, and hence is non-existent.
 INTRODUCTION

Albahari agrees that our ordinary sense of self is illusory, and she shares with
the bundle theorist the need to explain how we could come to have such a
sense if it is in important respects erroneous. But she denies that the bundle
theorist's approach could succeed in showing both that the self is constructed
and that it is illusory. She distinguishes between two forms of bundle-
theoretical non-self view: the non-reflexive variety, that denies the reflexivity
thesis, and the reflexive variety that affirms that thesis. The argument against
both presupposes that the illusion of the self could be dissolved through direct
introspection, without reliance on philosophical argument or any other form of
inference. Given this stricture, the bundle theorist must hold it possible to
directly confirm in one's experience that the self is constructed, namely by
apprehending the impermanence of the cognitions that on their view constitute
the bundle. Albahari's claim is that, regardless of whether or not one takes
consciousness to be reflexive, this turns out to be impossible: no cognition
could decisively undermine the sense that, while the present cognition differs
from other cognitions in its intentional object, it does not differ in terms of
perspectival ownership—that there is a mere witnessing that is common to all
my experiential states.
This sketch raises the question how Albahari's view differs from Zahavi's.
Zahavi, it will be recalled, affirms the existence of a minimal or experiential
core self. Albahari positions herself on the side of non-self theories. Yet both
see in the self-givenness of consciousness important evidence for an enduring
perspectival owner of conscious states. The difference lies in what they take
‘self’ to mean. While Zahavi rejects any attempt at giving a univocal
definition of a concept that he takes to be multifaceted and multidimensional,
Albahari claims to give an analysis of the self that we ordinarily take
ourselves to be. Since Zahavi's experiential self lacks many of the features
revealed by that analysis, she considers it too thin to count as a self. The
witness consciousness that is revealed in the self-givenness of perspectival
ownership lacks the crucial feature of boundedness, and thus cannot play the
role of core self for the narrativity project. It is just a witnessing, and thus
cannot ground the sense of agency and separateness at the heart of the
ordinary conception of the ‘I’. This is the reality that underlies the illusion of
the self but is not to be thought of as a self. This move allows Albahari to
avoid the difficulties that attend any version of bundle theory, while
apparently also escaping troubling questions about a permanent self's relation
to changing empirical content. In this as well, her approach resembles that of
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

Advaita Vedānta; the interested reader would do well to consult the papers on
this topic by Fasching and Ram-Prasad. The question one might pose for
Albahari is whether she is willing to pay the price that Advaita accepts for an
enduring witness: that all diversity in content (or for that matter anything else)
turns out to be illusory.
The paper by Georges Dreyfus takes up the problem of defending from a
Buddhist perspective the claim that consciousness is reflexive but
ownerless—that there is subjectivity but no subject. As Dreyfus makes clear,
not all Buddhist non-self theorists accept the reflexivity thesis. But the non-
self thesis is sometimes taken to mean that persons are utterly lacking in
interiority or subjectivity, and Dreyfus is concerned to make clear that this is
not true for at least one part of the Buddhist tradition, namely the school that
affirms the reflexivity thesis. A self-theorist like Zahavi will then want to
know how one can affirm a dimension of subjectivity while denying that there
is a self that serves as subject of experiential states. Dreyfus' response
resembles that of Albahari. The self at issue for Buddhists is one that ordinary
people have a sense of being, hence something that might be at least intimated
in ordinary experience: the self whose existence Buddhists reject is thus not a
purely structural requirement.
Like Albahari as well, Dreyfus locates the core of the illusion of self in
the presence in each conscious moment of reflexive awareness. Dreyfus,
though, would not be willing to call this ‘witness consciousness’, since for the
view he defends, the distinction between the content of a cognition and a
cognition's grasping of that content is a mere conceptual superimposition. This
move would allow Dreyfus to answer Albahari's basic objection to all forms
of bundle theory: that they cannot solve the binding problem and thus account
for the felt sense of diachronic unity in our experience. The view Dreyfus
defends is a kind of bundle theory, since it claims that while a certain basic
form of consciousness is present at each moment in the life of a person, the
basic consciousness is constantly renewed. The appeal to the ultimate non-
duality of consciousness and content is not, though, the answer Dreyfus
actually gives to the question how we are to know that the reflexive awareness
occurring in any one cognition is not identical with the reflexive awareness
occurring at other times in the same mental stream (and thus something
distinct from the content of any particular cognition). To give that answer he
would have to reject a doctrine he embraces, that in certain meditative states
there occurs consciousness that is devoid of all content and merely discloses
 INTRODUCTION

itself. To the extent that this is taken to be a ‘purified’ form of consciousness,

the implication is that there are no grounds on the basis of which one might
distinguish between the consciousness occurring at any one moment and that
occurring at other moments. One would then be back to Albahari's enduring
witness consciousness. What this difficulty might suggest is that it is not as
easy as one might hope to settle the issues at play here through appeal to the
data of experience alone. Dreyfus claims that he is doing phenomenology
without ontology, but it is not clear that the view he favors can be defended
without appeal to the sorts of mereological considerations that non-self
theorists of a more metaphysical stamp typically bring up. For a rather
different take on the same part of the Buddhist tradition that Dreyfus explores,
the interested reader will want to look at the contribution by Jonardon Ganeri.
The contribution of Evan Thompson seeks to show that the proper defense
of the reflexivity thesis poses difficulties for those who hold a strict form of
non-self theory. He begins by examining the memory argument for self-
illumination, which concludes that all cognitions are reflexively aware, on the
grounds that since one does not remember what one did not experience, one
could not remember a past experience unless at the time one had the
experience one was aware not only of its object but also of the experiencing of
the object. The argument has often been criticized as question-begging, but
Thompson responds to these critics by formulating it in such a way that a key
premise is grounded in purely phenomenological considerations. The claim is
that episodic memory has a phenomenal structure that is best represented as
the immediate awareness, not of the past object but of the object as object of a
past experiencing. This is then said to be best explained by the reflexivity
thesis. One might wonder whether this formulation of the memory argument
captures what those Buddhists who accept self-illumination had in mind, but
here Thompson is more interested in the truth about subjectivity than in
historical-philological questions.
Thompson then explores how this reading of the memory argument would
affect the dispute between self theorists like Zahavi and those non-self
theorists who accept the reflexivity thesis. His conclusion is that because
episodic memory presents the past experience as something lived through by
me, a self-illumination theorist cannot defend non-self simply on the grounds
that the subjectivity revealed in an individual cognition is not thereby revealed
to be something that endures. If the grounds for affirming the reflexivity thesis
are those given in the memory argument, and that argument is best construed
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

phenomenologically, then considerable pressure will be put on the non-self

theorist to grant the force of evidence that is often construed as revealing an
enduring ‘I’. Thompson hastens to add that this need not be seen as the total
defeat of the non-self view, since the revised memory argument does not
establish the existence of a separately existing self. Given the ethical concerns
that motivate most formulations of non-self view, however, it is not clear that
this will be at all consoling. Their project has typically been to show that our
sense of an ‘I’ that endures rests on a mistake, but if we must take the
phenomenological account of episodic memory at face value, it becomes more
difficult for them to claim (as they generally do) that our intuitions in these
matters are not to be trusted. They would then be in a position similar to that
of the bundle theorist who also accepts Albahari's stricture that a self-illusion
must be dissolvable through direct introspection: they would be constrained to
accept a body of evidence that they would prefer to reject on philosophical
grounds. But for additional discussion of the sort of view Thompson defends,
the interested reader will want to consult the paper by Matt MacKenzie.
Jonardon Ganeri's paper for this volume takes up the views of the same
school of Buddhist philosophy (Yogācāra) that figured in Georges Dreyfus'
essay. Ganeri, though, looks at the earliest phase in the development of
Yogācāra philosophy, specifically at the initial formulation of the idea that
there is a distinctive form of consciousness involved in the fabrication of a
self. (The views that Dreyfus develops come largely from later Tibetan
sources.) Already in this phase, Ganeri claims, there was recognition that
consciousness is pre-reflectively, reflexively aware. This then became the
basis for a new account of the source of false belief in a self, one that Ganeri
sets out to reconstruct and evaluate. The puzzle revolves around the fact that,
while reflexivity means one is always in some sense aware of being in the
mental state one is in at the time, the non-self theorist claims it is a mistake to
go on to assert that one is in that state. A self theorist denies that there is a
mistake here: to say ‘I am seeing blue’ is just to articulate the self-awareness
that is implicit in every experience. Ganeri begins by raising an issue for
Zahavi's defense of the self: what Zahavi calls the core or experiential self
fails to individuate thinkers, insofar as the ipseity present in any given stream
at any particular moment is qualitatively identical with that in any other
stream. But that would still leave us without a reason to think there is a
mistake involved in this transition.
 INTRODUCTION

Instead of pursuing this question through phenomenological investigation,

Ganeri chooses to examine our use of the first-person pronoun ‘I’. This
methodological choice has strong precedent in the Buddhist tradition, which
early on claimed that belief in a self stemmed from a mistaken semantic
theory. The question is whether such an approach will serve the interests of
the non-self theorist once reflexivity has been acknowledged. Now, as Ganeri
points out, when Buddhist non-self theorists claim that the seemingly referring
expression ‘I’ actually fails to refer, further metaphysical argument is then
required to sustain the denial of a referent. What Ganeri wonders is whether
this route can be avoided just by questioning the assumption that ‘I’ is in the
referring line of work at all. The key to doing this lies in the so-called
immunity to error through misidentification that first-person reports generally
share. While this is often taken to reflect a certain sort of privileged access
that the self has to its own states, Ganeri sees clues in the work of
Wittgenstein, Anscombe and Candrakīrti that such immunity might instead
signal that ‘I’ is not being used to refer at all. The question can be asked
whether pursuit of this strategy will lead in the end to the denial of
subjectivity.
The paper by Wolfgang Fasching that is included here claims that there is
much we can learn about the Advaita Vedānta view of the self if we approach
it from a phenomenological perspective. His paper begins with a brief
discussion of the soteriological concerns common to Advaita and Buddhism,
and explores how these concerns lead to a common rejection of any
substantialist self-theory. This leaves the alternatives of non-self and non-
substantialism. Fasching claims that the non-self view must embrace the self-
illumination theory in order to give a phenomenologically adequate account of
subjectivity. By adopting the strategy of impermanence the non-self theorist
tries to keep the adoption of self-illumination theory from leading to the
countenancing of a subject: a self-illuminating cognition is not a self because
it does not endure. Fasching thinks this strategy must fail, since it does not
acknowledge an all-important aspect of all cognitions: that they include the
sense of being experienced by me. That this witnessing endures can be argued
for on the basis of the diachronic unity of apperception. But Fasching is
cognizant of the danger for a non-substantialist in such an appeal—that it
suggests the self is a separately existing entity. He believes that the Advaitin
can avoid this trap by refusing to separate the presencing that is the mode of
being of each experience and the content of the experience. He takes this to be
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

the point of the Advaitin insistence that the self is neither an object of
experience nor the subject of experience, but somehow transcends both.
Careful phenomenological investigation of the mode of givenness of
experience can, he thinks, help us make sense of this. What this leaves
unanswered, however, is why we should not distinguish between the
presencing that is constitutive of the currently occurring experience, and the
presencing that was constitutive of a past experience, given that the two
experiences have different contents. The Buddhist self-illuminationist will
appeal to this difference in content in deploying their impermanence strategy.
It is at this point that Advaitins have typically invoked their claim that all
difference is illusory, that ultimately there is only the one Self that is not to be
distinguished from pure Being (Brahman). It is recourse to this radical non-
dualism (a-dvaita-vāda) that they have relied on to answer the charge that a
non-substantial witnessing must be just as variable as its contents, and so must
be impermanent. Fasching wishes to avoid what to many has seemed like a
desperate metaphysics, and so confines his account to the phenomenology that
he takes to underlie the Advaita position. The question that might be asked,
however, is how one is to prevent a metaphysical stand-off over the status of
the mental stream. The non-self theorist holds that the stream is conceptually
constructed out of individual consciousness-events; the non-substantialist
holds it to be a single enduring thing. The soteriological concerns that
motivated the Indian debate suggest that an answer is required.
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, in his paper for this volume, takes this
Advaitin bull by its (non-dual) horn: he makes explicit the role of non-dualism
in Advaita's account of the self as pure luminosity. He starts with a discussion
of the rejection of a substantial self that is common to Buddhism and Advaita.
In this they are united in their opposition to those who wish to salvage as
much as possible of the common-sense view that the first-person pronoun ‘I’
refers to the self. Where they part company is over the correct analysis of ‘I’.
Buddhist non-self theorists typically claim that ‘I’ is just a useful way to refer
to a large collection of suitably arranged psychophysical elements, none of
which is a self; on this analysis our mistake lies in taking there to be one thing
when there are really only the many. Advaitins, instead, think our mistake lies
in taking there to be a many when strictly speaking there is just the one. This
is what lies behind their insistence that ‘I’ does not refer to the self. Their self,
as pure luminosity or presencing, is real but does not individuate, whereas ‘I’
must individuate. On this view, ‘I’ refers to the organ involved in the
 INTRODUCTION

presentation to consciousness of the object. The common error of taking it to

refer to the self is explicable, given its close association with the self and the
apparent utility of such identification. But if the self is of the nature of
consciousness, and is for that reason not to be construed as a substance, then it
can be neither object nor subject, in which case individuation is always an
error. This yields a ready answer to the question of self-luminous
consciousness' identity over time: if diversity of content is mere appearance,
then the impermanence of consciousness may be safely ruled out. But this will
probably be of little comfort to most non-substantialists, who think of the self
as inherently perspectival in nature.
Matt MacKenzie claims, in his paper, that the self might be described
(putting it in Buddhist terms) as ‘dependently originated and empty, but
nevertheless real’. To say of something that it is empty is to say that it lacks
intrinsic nature, a thing's intrinsic nature being the way that it is,
independently of how other things are. To say of something that it is
dependently originated is to say that it arises in dependence on causes and
conditions. For most Buddhists, anything that lacks intrinsic nature is not
ultimately real: if all a thing's properties are relational, if it has a determinate
nature only through its relations to other things, then it must be conceptually
constructed. Some Buddhists also claim that anything dependently originated
is empty. All Buddhists would agree that the self is dependently originated
and empty. The surprise comes in the claim that the self is real all the same.
The question is how something that is conceptually constructed could
nonetheless be real.
For MacKenzie the answer lies in a form of emergentism. He claims that
the behavior of certain sorts of dynamic processes eludes reductive
explanation, in that the behavior of the system as a whole cannot be accounted
for just in terms of facts about its constituents. The person is just such a
system, with the first-person perspective and phenomenality one characteristic
result of this emergent process. The idea seems to be that when
psychophysical elements are organized in the right way, their interaction
results in a sense of mine-ness without which episodic memory is
inexplicable, so that a minimal core self must be acknowledged as real,
despite its being wholly constituted by completely impersonal entities.
Emergentisms are a common response to the sorts of difficulties one
encounters when complex systems resist reductive causal explanation. But the
general strategy has its problems as well. One difficulty lies in explaining the
MARK SIDERITS, EVAN THOMPSON, DAN ZAHAVI

relation between the system and its constituents in such a way as to avoid the
absolute idealist conclusion that the only real is the one grand system. Another
problem is that it can be difficult to say when we are entitled to conclude that
the behavior of a complex system will forever resist reductive causal
explanation. Perhaps the key question to ask here, however, is how the ethical
concerns behind the Buddhist non-self project can be reconciled with the
claim that an emergent self is empty but real.
Galen Strawson's views on the self are well known. In his paper for this
volume, he extends those views to the question whether the self is aware of
itself. Like most other contributors, he accepts the reflexivity thesis. And since
his self is just the ‘thin subject’ or present-moment cognizing, it follows from
the reflexivity thesis that the self is aware of itself. But the awareness being
attributed here is non-thetic. What Strawson is interested in challenging is the
almost universally accepted claim that the self cannot be present-moment
directly and thetically aware of itself. A substantialist who accepts the
reflexivity thesis, but thinks of cognition as a mode of the self, could say that
in reflective consciousness the self is thetically aware of itself. But this thetic
awareness would not be direct, going as it does through direct awareness of
the cognition to indirect awareness of the self as subject of the cognition.
Strawson's subject is the cognition itself. Yet he claims that in certain
meditative states there is fully thetic awareness of the cognizing subject. Is it
after all possible that the fingertip can touch itself?
Strawson answers the last question in the negative, but he takes the case
of self-awareness to be different. This may be because he takes the distinction
between subject and object of cognition to be a conceptual superimposition on
something intrinsically non-dual. If so, he then faces the same challenge that
confronts the Buddhist non-self self-illumination theorist who takes this tack:
resolving the paradox of inexpressibility that results when one claims that the
true non-dual nature of cognition is inexpressible. If, on the other hand, he
wants to join Dreyfus in rejecting the claim that cognition is non-dual, on the
grounds that objectless cognition is possible, then like Dreyfus he will need
some way of answering Albahari's charge that his subject is just her enduring
witness and not anything transitory at all.
Our last paper, by Mark Siderits, is the only one to explore the option of
rejecting the reflexivity thesis. He begins with the standard Buddhist
formulation of non-self, and considers the objection that a reductionist
strategy can show that some putative entity is not ultimately real only if there
 INTRODUCTION

is that to which it might appear that the entity is real. On this objection, any
attempt to show that the self just consists in purely impersonal entities must be
self-defeating, in that it requires that there be that to which it appears that the
self is real. Self-illumination theory is one way in which non-self theorists
have attempted to answer this objection. Siderits claims, though, that the
arguments for the reflexivity thesis are not sufficiently compelling to
overcome its strongly counter-intuitive character, so that it might be worth
exploring what the alternative is for the non-self theorist. Since none of the
many Buddhist schools that were other-illuminationist developed detailed
accounts of how cognition might be cognized, the answer Siderits develops is
speculative, based as it is on the views of non-Buddhist Indian other-
illuminationists. The resulting theory has it that cognitions are never directly
cognized, and are cognized only through an abductive inference from the
global availability—availability to such systems as the faculties of speech,
memory, and action-guidance—of information about the object. Since it then
follows that mental states have the property of being conscious only
extrinsically, through their relations to other states, consciousness itself turns
out to be reducible: cognitions are not among the ultimate constituents of
which persons are composed.
This strategy would certainly answer the objection. If its seeming to us as
if we are conscious is just a useful way for a certain sort of information-
processing system to manage the flow of information, then there need not be a
self to explain the fact that the system self-represents. Consistent application
of reductionist metaphysics would preserve the ethical aims behind the non-
self view. The question that must be asked here, though, is whether this is not,
as with Advaita, a desperate metaphysics. At the end of his paper, Siderits
explores the image of fully enlightened beings that one finds in some Buddhist
devotional literature. These beings are depicted as so skilled at exercising
compassion that they act in the world on full auto-pilot, never actually
cognizing the beings they help. When this image is read in the light of a
reductive approach to consciousness, the suggestion would be that the
soteriological aim behind non-self is to overcome the illusion that we are not
zombies. To say that most readers will find this implausible is probably not an
overstatement.
 1
The Who and the How
of Experience
JOEL W. KRUEGER

1. Introduction
Does consciousness require a self ?1 In what follows, I argue that it does not.
I concede at the outset that this is a counterintuitive thesis. For, a central
feature of conscious states is that their mode of appearance (i.e. how they are
given) exhibits an irreducibly first-personal nature. My experiences are
distinctly my own, given to me and only me. This first-personal ‘how’ of
consciousness is what secures its phenomenal character. And it seems natural
to assume that this how points back to a ‘who’: a stable, enduring, conscious
subject at the receiving end of phenomenal states. But is the assumption that
a how requires a who warranted? I will argue below that, just because the
subjective character of consciousness gives rise to a sense of self—that is, the
felt sense of being a stable who, or owner of conscious episodes—it does not
follow that this who really exists in any autonomous or enduring sense.
First, I do some background work, briefly discussing the phenomenolog-
ical notion of the ‘minimal self ’ before then looking at a Buddhist concep-
tion of selfless subjectivity. Next, I examine the minimal self more carefully,
along with what is sometimes termed the ‘narrative self ’, and argue for the
experiential primacy of the former. I then argue that the phenomenal
character of consciousness, which the minimal self-model is supposed to

1 I am grateful for conversations with the participants of the ‘Self-No-Self ’ workshop in Copenha-
gen, Denmark, April 15–16, 2009, which greatly assisted my thinking about the issues discussed in this
paper. I am also especially grateful to Mark Siderits for his critical comments on an earlier version of this
paper, as well as the very helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers.
28 JOEL W. KRUEGER

capture, does not require the existence of a stable, permanent, or uncondi-

tioned self (or ‘who’). At best, minimal self theorists (e.g. Zahavi 2005), who
look to identify the self with the phenomenal character of consciousness,
ought to speak instead of transient minimal phenomenal selves. An enduring
who is thus neither necessary nor sufficient for a how.

2. Preliminaries: The Philosophical Importance

of the Minimal Self
Why focus on the minimal self ? There are three reasons. First, as developed
(often implicitly) in phenomenologists such as Husserl, Sartre, and Merleau-
Ponty—and given robust articulation in the work of neo-phenomenologists
such as Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi—the notion has direct bearing on
how we understand the very nature of consciousness qua consciousness:
namely, the phenomenal or subjective character of conscious experience.
The phenomenal character of experience refers to the ‘what it’s like’ quality
of different conscious episodes that gives them their particular phenome-
nology: for example, what it’s like to sip a single malt Scotch, view a vivid
yellow tulip, blush at the memory of a youthful indiscretion, or feel the
smoothness of an oak table. The phenomenological notion of the minimal
self, and the particular structural analysis of consciousness that the minimal
self is a crucial part of (discussed below), are thus concerned with laying bare
the defining feature of consciousness.
The second reason to focus on the minimal self in this context is that,
according to its defenders, it links intimately, not just to the ontology of
consciousness, but to the most basic form of self-experience: the experience
of being a subject of conscious states, a thinker of thoughts, a feeler of feelings,
an initiator of actions, etc. In other words, the minimal self captures the
feeling of phenomenal interiority that is perhaps the central aspect of
selfhood—the feeling that I, and only I, have this particular first-hand
mode of access to the goings-on in my head at this very moment.2 The

2 As Galen Strawson notes, the realization that one enjoys privileged access to one’s interiority ‘comes
to every normal human being, in some form, in childhood. The early realization of the fact that one’s
thoughts are unobservable by others, the experience of the profound sense in which one is alone in one’s
head—these are among the very deepest facts about the character of human life’ (Strawson 1999a: 2). But
developmentally speaking, the experience of phenomenal interiority is probably even more basic than
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 29

minimal self looks to offer a characterization of this primitive form of

phenomenal self-acquaintance.
The third reason for focusing on the minimal self is that, due to its subtlety
and ubiquity—it is claimed to be an invariant structural feature of conscious-
ness, meaning that every conscious entity is, or has, a minimal self—it is
potentially an especially difficult self for Buddhism to get rid of. Philosophi-
cal discussions of the minimal self offer a subtle brand of realism about the
self. Due to its place within a defensible characterization of phenomenal
consciousness, the phenomenological notion of the minimal self presents
a unique challenge to the Buddhist deflationary project of denying the
ultimate reality of the self. Moreover, since Buddhist philosophy is deeply
preoccupied with questions about the nature of self and subjectivity, the
notion of the minimal self resonates organically with Buddhist philosophical
concerns. It offers a fruitful point of contact for thinkers working from
within the tradition of Western phenomenology and philosophy of mind
to engage with Buddhist philosophy. Now, having clarified the reasons for
focusing on the minimal self in this context, I want to examine next the
notions of subjectivity and no-self as developed in Buddhist philosophy.

3. Self, Subjectivity, and No-Self

in Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhism famously denies the existence of a fixed, permanent, or enduring
self.3 According to the Buddhist tradition, both physical and mental phe-
nomena arise, exist, and pass away within a vast, interrelated network of
causes and conditions. This continual process of arising, existing, and
passing away is the process of dependent origination (pratı̄tya-samutpāda),
one of the core notions of Buddhist thought. Buddhism argues further that

Strawson concedes. Research on neonate imitation (discussed in more detail in section 4) suggests that
newborn infants have an immediate sense of their own interiority, and there are reasons to attribute this
primitive self-awareness to some nonhuman animals. One thus needn’t possess the concept of interiority
(which is generally thought to be an aspect of possessing a ‘theory of mind’) to have the experiential sense
of one’s interiority, of being the sort of thing (i.e. a self ) with an inner experiential dimension unique to
oneself.
3 I am indebted to both Georges Dreyfus (1997) and Matt Mackenzie (2008) for the discussion in this
section.
30 JOEL W. KRUEGER

all entities, events, and processes have no substantial reality outside of this
dynamic matrix of dependent origination. So, things like chariots, pots, and
persons are ultimately empty (śūnya) of fixed or intrinsic nature (svabhāva).4
Since the psychophysical complex of the person (or self ) is subject to the
same causes and conditions as everything else, it, too, is ultimately empty of
intrinsic nature. This is the other core doctrine of no-self (anātman), the
most well-known and controversial aspect of Buddhist thought. What is
perhaps less well known, however, is that some Buddhist thinkers argue that
the denial of the self does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with a denial of
subjectivity. These thinkers offer a model of consciousness that preserves its
phenomenal character while nevertheless denying that the phenomenal
character of consciousness is dependent upon the existence of a fixed,
enduring, or unconditioned subject. This is not the place to survey the
vast Buddhist literature on this topic. Instead, we can focus on two specific
forms of self-awareness discussed in the literature, one broad and one
narrow, and look at how they relate to an analysis of (no-)self and phenom-
enal consciousness.
The first of these notions is the broader form of self-awareness captured by
the term aham
kāra, which denotes ‘I-maker’ awareness, the sense of oneself as a
single entity enduring throughout time. This is the sense of being an autono-
mous self, distinct from the flux and flow of ever-changing experiences.
Additionally, the term also captures the egocentric structure of human exis-
tence—our tendency to act and make decisions which reflect our own self-
interests (Mackenzie 2008: 247). The term svasam
vedana, on the other hand, is
a narrower form of self-awareness. It refers to the immediate acquaintance we
have with both the content of our conscious states (i.e. the intentional object
that an experience is an experience of, such as a perception of a tree, a memory
of a childhood experience, or the image of a unicorn), as well as the character of
our conscious states (i.e. the first-person phenomenal mode of access to the
intentional content, such as the act of perceiving a tree, remembering a
childhood experience, or imagining a unicorn). Put differently, svasam
vedana
refers to the ‘self-illuminating’ (svaprakāśa) character of conscious states. When
I have an experience of, for example, the sound of a car roaring by on the street

4 A central debate within Buddhist philosophy concerns whether all things are empty of intrinsic
nature, or whether there are some things (e.g. dharmas, or momentary, individual atoms or tropes) which
have intrinsic nature. See Siderits (2007) for a clear introduction to this debate (and others) within the
Buddhist philosophical tradition.
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 31

outside, I am simultaneously aware, in that single experience, of both the

object-as-given (i.e. the sound of the car roaring by) as well as my experience of the
object-as-given (i.e. the auditory experience of the car roaring by as my auditory
experience). Every consciousness episode thus has a dual-aspect, Janus-faced
structure. It involves, at the same time, a world-directed objective aspect
( grāhyākāra) as well as an implicit,5 self-reflexive subjective aspect ( grāhakākāra)
(Dreyfus 1997: 345–53). But these two forms of self-awareness, aham
kāra and
svasam
vedana, are connected (i.e. they dependently condition one another), in
that ‘svasam
vedana yields mental states with at least implicit first-person con-
tents—e.g. “I am aware of a cup”, “I am in pain”, etc.—which reinforces the
aham
kāra’ (Mackenzie 2008: 247). Yet svasam
vedana is the more phenomeno-
logically primitive feature of experience. It can be present without necessarily
invoking aham
kāra. However, the converse is not the case.
The seventh-century Indian Buddhist thinker Dharmakı̄rti makes much
of this distinction in developing his reflexivist view of self-awareness.6
Dharmakı̄rti claims that, ‘If cognition were not itself perceived, perception
of an object is never possible’ (quoted in Moksākaragupta 1985: 51). Con-
˙
sciousness must thus be immanently self-reflexive, Dharmakı̄rti insists, since
without the simultaneous awareness that one is aware, a given conscious state
can’t rightly be called conscious, as opposed to an unconscious state or sub-
personal process. According to Dharmakı̄rti, a phenomenally conscious state
is a state that the subject is aware of. So, unless mental state M is in some sense
self-conscious, there is nothing that it is like to be in M, and M is thus not a
phenomenally conscious state. Dharmakı̄rti argues that, therefore, self-
awareness is a necessary feature of consciousness: it is a constitutive feature
of its phenomenal character as conscious.7 But how do we account for this
primitive form of self-awareness? What is its phenomenological structure?
Anticipating Sartre (1943/1956) as well as other more recent discussions
(e.g. Kriegel 2003), one argument Dharmakı̄rti gives is the infinite regress
argument.8 According to Dharmakı̄rti, the reflexive self-awareness central

5 This form of self-awareness is implicit in that it is not the result of a voluntary act of introspection or
reflection. I will also characterize this form of self-awareness as ‘immanent’ to phenomenally conscious
states.
6 Dreyfus (1997) offers extensive analysis. Dunne (2004) is an excellent introduction to Dharmakı̄rti’s
thought as a whole.
7 He writes, ‘The [mind] understands by itself its own nature’ (quoted in Dreyfus 1997: 340).
8 One also finds versions of this argument in Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Kant, and
Brentano, among others. See Kriegel (2003).
32 JOEL W. KRUEGER

to consciousness cannot be the product of some sort of internal monitoring,

such as a second-order reflective act or separate act of introspection or
perception that takes the original state as its object.9 Rather, on pain of
infinite regress, reflexive self-awareness must be a first-order feature of
conscious states. For, if an occurrent mental state M is only conscious (i.e.
self-aware) when it is taken as an object by a numerically distinct second-
order mental state, M*, a regress threatens. In order for the second-order
mental state M* to be conscious, it would have to be taken as an object by a
numerically distinct third-order mental state, M**, and so on ad infinitum.
Therefore, to avoid this regress, it must be that, when a subject S is
consciously aware, A, of an object, O—and is, moreover, self-aware, A*,
of being consciously aware of O—the self-awareness (A*) that one is aware of
O is built into the very structure of that experience. More simply, A* is an
intrinsic or tacit form of ‘self-reference without identification’ (Shoemaker
1968) that does not rely on a second-order, meta-act of reflection or
perception for its phenomenal character. Put yet another way, this form
of immanent self-awareness is nondyadic. It does not have an intentional
(i.e. act-object, or dual) structure, but is instead a pre-reflective self-
consciousness, a nondyadic mode of awareness of one’s conscious acts and
the way that different objects are given first-personally through those acts
(Sartre 1943/1956: 119–126). According to Dharmakı̄rti, then, the imma-
nent self-reflexivity of conscious states is what secures their phenomenal
character. It is a form of givenness that gives conscious states their first-
personal character as well as their ‘seeming’ quality, such as how the taste of
a single-malt Scotch, or the warm associations summoned by a childhood
memory, seem to the subject who has these states.
This is not the place to assess the strength of these and other arguments
Dharmakı̄rti gives in support of his conception of svasam
vedana.10 Rather,

9 Contemporary versions of these views, respectively, are defended by higher-order perception (or
‘HOP’) theorists such as Armstrong (1968) and Lycan (1997), and higher-order thought (or ‘HOT’)
theorists such as Rosenthal (1993).
10 Dharmakı̄rti offers another argument for svasam
vedana, which we might term the ‘feeling-tone’
argument. For Dharmakı̄rti, all intentional objects are given through an affective valence or feeling-
tone—positive, neutral, negative—that colors how we experience these objects. But since this feeling-
tone is an experiential property (i.e. a property of the subject, not the object), and since, moreover, the
feeling-tone is always given simultaneously with the object, it follows that in every experience the
subject simultaneously apprehends both the object and herself (i.e. via the presence of a subject-referring
feeling-tone). We can thus conceptually distinguish two aspects of each mental state: its world-present-
ing objective aspect ( grāhyākāra) and its subject-referring subjective aspect ( grāhakākāra). However,
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 33

the point of this discussion is to indicate that within the Buddhist tradition
there is room for a view that admits the reality of subjectivity, while
nevertheless denying the ultimate existence of an enduring self. Dharmakı̄rti
insists that conceding the subjective or self-reflexive character of conscious-
ness is compatible with the core Buddhist notion of anātman. This is so, he
urges, because svasam
vedana is the phenomenally continuous, first-person
perspective one has on the stream of one’s own experience. But this first-
person perspective or experiential dimension at the heart of consciousness is
not itself a self. It is a feature of the stream of experience, and not a self
standing behind the experience. As such, it is dynamic, relational, and
perpetually in flux, dependently conditioned by the continually changing
interplay of successive contents (i.e. the intentional objects of experiences)
and acts (i.e. the first-personal phenomenal modes of access to successively
changing contents). But again, there is nothing fixed, permanent, or un-
conditioned standing behind, or distinct from, this stream. There is simply
the first-personal stream itself.
Thus, while Dharmakı̄rti argues that consciousness is intrinsically person-
al, that is, it manifests in a first-personal how, or mode of givenness, it doesn’t
follow, he further insists, that there is a single, stable who serving as the
recipient of this stream. Dharmakı̄rti’s discussion of the self is in this way a
deflationary realism. The sense of self at the core of phenomenal conscious-
ness (svasam
vedana) is indeed very real. This quality, for Dharmakı̄rti, is
subjectivity: it is what makes consciousness the unique phenomenon that it
is. And each act of cognition thus has this aspect of subjectivity. Additional-
ly, the sense of being a self with a temporally extended, historically con-
stituted identity (aham
kāra) is also real. But to infer that subjectivity
(svasam
vedana) entails the real existence of a stable phenomenal self, or to
infer that aham
kāra refers to a permanent, stable historical self, is a mistake.
This mistake arises, Dharmakı̄rti argues, from our tendency to reify the
sense of self central to the phenomenal character of consciousness. That is,
we reify either, on one hand, the self-reflexive, first-personal character of
conscious states—falsely assuming that the mineness of experience picks out
a permanent, substantial me—or, on the other hand, the broader form of
‘I-maker’ self-awareness that emerges over time, and which is fed by the

phenomenologically and ontologically, these aspects are nondyadically conjoined within the unified
structure of each state. See Dreyfus 1997: 400–403.
34 JOEL W. KRUEGER

first-person perspective of svasam
vedana. To reiterate, we reify the sense of

self intrinsic to consciousness (which is indeed very real) and mistakenly
posit from this an enduring substantial self (which is not real). In the end,
however, both svasam
vedana and aham
kāra are impermanent phenomena.
Neither picks out the ultimate reality of a stable enduring self, since each
ultimately rests on a continuum of transient states.
Having briefly sketched a Buddhist conception of subjectivity sans the
self, I next want to look at two contemporary philosophical models of self:
the narrative self-model, which is the focus of the next section, and the
minimal self, which will be introduced in the section thereafter.

4. Self as Story: Narrative Self-Models

There is no unequivocal use of the term ‘self ’. Ulrich Neisser famously
delineates five types of self: the ecological, interpersonal, extended, private,
and conceptual self (Neisser 1988: 35). More recently, Galen Strawson
(1999b) has distinguished twenty-one concepts of self! Surely there are
even more. While this sort of conceptual proliferation might be warranted,
given that the self is a multidimensional notion incapable of being reduced
to a few restrictive categories relative to a particular disciplinary inquiry,
some simplification can assist our discussion. Recent philosophical debates
have focused on two notions of self that have particular relevance for
understanding the nature of consciousness since they capture both the
phenomenal character of experience as well as its temporal (i.e. synchronic
and diachronic) unity and social situatedness. These notions are the ‘mini-
mal self ’ (Gallagher 2000; Zahavi 2005) and the ‘narrative self ’ (Dennett
1991; Schechtman 1996; Damasio 1999; Hutto 2008).
A significant portion of our self-understanding as reflective creatures is
structured by the symbolic mediation of narratives. Narratives help us
organize and interpret our own experiential histories, share these histories
with others, and meaningfully participate in the lives and experiences of
others by entering into their ongoing narratives. One of our most distinctive
traits is that we don’t just reason—we tell stories about how we reason
(Hutto 2007: 1; MacIntyre 1981: 201). However, according to some theor-
ists, narratives do more than lend dramatic texture to our lives. The
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 35

narratives we tell—narratives that we cannot help but tell, given the way our
brains are hardwired (Dennett 1991)—play a significant role in shaping and
even constituting the self. The self is thus a narrative construction.11 Daniel
Dennett famously writes: ‘Our tales are spun, but for the most part we don’t
spin them; they spin us. Our human consciousness, and our narrative
selfhood, is their product, not their source’ (Dennett 1991: 418).
What counts as a narrative remains a contentious issue within the current
literature; I have no aspirations of settling the debate here. However,
although a precise definition is unnecessary for present concerns, a glance
at possible candidates will be helpful both for establishing the general
contours of narrative approaches to the self as well as clarifying precisely
how narrative accounts of self sit next to minimal accounts of self. To begin
simply: narratives are constructed, and not merely discovered. Narratives
are thus a uniquely human enterprise. Moreover, narratives are distinct from
mere chronicles of temporally indexed events, such as the timeline of a
person’s life (Danto 1965). What is constructed in narrative must be a
relation between at least two events and/or states of affairs united by some
relatively loose, non-logical relation (Lamarque 2004: 394). But this thin
characterization of narrative says little of the temporal structure of narratives
and nothing of their social character. Nor does it say anything about their
role in constructing the self.
Alasdair MacIntyre (1981) offers an alternative. Although he fails to
define ‘narrative’ explicitly in After Virtue, MacIntyre nevertheless develops
a rendering that brings out the temporal, social, and self-constituting char-
acter of narratives. He writes:
The story of my life is always embedded in the story of those communities from
which I derive my identity. I am born with a past; and to try to cut myself off from
that past, in the individualist mode, is to deform my present relationships . . . What
I am, therefore, is a key part of what I inherit, a specific past that is present to some
degree in my present.
(MacIntyre 1981: 205–206)

11 Defenders of narrative accounts of self include both philosophers (e.g. Alasdair MacIntyre 1981,
Charles Taylor 1989, Daniel Dennett 1991, Paul Ricoeur 1992, Marya Schechtman 1996, Shaun
Gallagher 2003, David Velleman 2006, Daniel Hutto 2008, and Anthony Rudd 2009) and psychologists
(e.g. Donald Spence 1982, Jerome Bruner 1986, and Mark Freeman 1993).
36 JOEL W. KRUEGER

As MacIntyre notes, the self is always embedded in a network of pre-

existent socio-cultural narratives. These narratives have their own history,
independent of my existence. But my own present self-understanding is
very much a product of these narratives—and in this sense, the present self
that I understand myself to be is shaped by stories others have told prior to
my existence. Part of my narrative self-identity thus predates my existence.
Additionally, I am not the sole author of the narratives through which I
understand myself. My self-understanding is largely shaped by the narratives
of other authors: ‘[W]e are never more (and sometimes less) than the co-
authors of our own narratives . . . In life, as both Aristotle and Engels noted,
we are always under certain constraints. We enter upon a stage which we
did not design and we find ourselves part of an action that was not of our
making’ (MacIntyre 1981: 213). With the nod towards Aristotle and Engels,
MacIntyre is emphasizing the point that the narrative self is a product, not
simply of other story-telling individuals, but additionally of the unique time,
place, and linguistic culture that constrain the sort of stories the narrative self
hears and tells (Turner 1991: 184). Processes of self-understanding are in this
way irreducibly social, culturally embedded affairs. And the self, as narrative
construction, is thus dialectically linked with otherness.12
To focus the discussion somewhat, I would now like to differentiate two
possible ways of parsing narrative accounts of self: what I will term, respec-
tively, (1) the narrative enhancement account (NEA), and (2) the narrative
constitution account (NCA). NEA is the less ambitious. It simply claims
that some, but indeed not all, aspects or parts of the self are at least
potentially enhanced or explicated by narratives. This weaker account
accepts that, while some aspects of the self (e.g. cultural and ethnic identi-
fications, gender representations, etc.) only emerge through the self ’s par-
ticipation within different narratives, other more primitive features of the
self (e.g. its neurobiological basis, core set of psychological characteristics or
traits, its experiential status as a first-person perspective on the world, etc.)
are fixed independently of any sort of self-narrative. Formulated this way,
NEA does not claim that the self as a whole is constituted by the various
narratives it spins. NEA allows for the prior existence of some sort of pre-
narrative self capable of being narratively explicated or enhanced in the first

12 Paul Ricoeur insists that ‘the selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such an intimate degree that
one cannot be thought without the other’ (Ricoeur 1992: 3).
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 37

place. MacIntyre, for example, seems to endorse NEA when he insists that,
‘It is important to notice that I am not arguing that the concepts of narrative
or of intelligibility or of accountability are more fundamental than that of
personal identity’ (MacIntyre 1981: 203).13 Again, the salient point is that,
for NEA, the narrative self is a derivative notion dependent upon a more
basic pre-narrative self.
On the other hand, the stronger account of narrative selfhood offers a
constitution claim: namely, that the self is literally constituted by narratives.
The self is ultimately nothing but a dense constellation of interwoven
narratives, an emergent entity that gradually unfurls from (and is thus
constituted by) the stories we tell and have told about us. As we’ve already
seen, Dennett (1989, 1991) seems to hold this view. Again, recall his
insistence that ‘like spider webs, our tales are spun by us; our human
consciousness, and our narrative selfhood, is their product, not their source’
(Dennett 1991: 418). Drawing inspiration from Dennett (among others),
Marya Schechtman similarly characterizes her own ‘self-constitution’ view
as the claim that ‘a person exists in the convergence of subjective and
objective features. An individual constitutes herself as a person by coming
to organize her experiences in a narrative self-conception of the appropriate
form’ (Schechtman 1996: 134).
This brief characterization of narrative-self models hints at their theoreti-
cal richness for understanding the dynamic, relational, and situated nature of
the self. However, our discussion in the previous section has already
suggested a difficulty for NCA. Exploring this difficulty is the work of the
next section.

5. Pre-Narrative Selfhood
There is a difficulty with NCA that doesn’t plague NEA. It is this: the NCA
‘self as story’ story seems to weave an incomplete story of the self. Put
differently, in order to be a narrative-telling creature—in order to cast
oneself as the protagonist in one’s own narrative—one must already be
the possessor of, in addition to the linguistic capacities needed to construct a

13 Actually, MacIntyre’s view here isn’t entirely clear. See Williams (2009) for discussion and
criticism.
38 JOEL W. KRUEGER

narrative, a more primitive pre-narrative, embodied first-person perspective

on the world. Narrative selves must always already be conscious subjects,
since a creature that lacks subjectivity cannot simultaneously be a creature
that produces narratives about that subjectivity. But the converse isn’t true.
We can be conscious—again, we can be the possessor of an embodied first-
person point of view on the world, including a pre-reflective sense of being
an embodied first-person perspective—without simultaneously being a
subject who produces narratives about this first-person point of view.
Narratives are thus not essential to basic forms of subjectivity or minimal
phenomenal selfhood in the way that embodied first-person perspectives
are. And NCA is therefore pitched at too high an explanatory level, as
variations of this approach overlook the minimal forms of phenomenal
selfhood that pre-exist narrative selfhood. Indeed, narratives play a central
role in practical reasoning, deliberation, and self-reflection, and in generat-
ing our sense of being a culturally situated social self with a unique experi-
ential history. But the narrative self is not an essential phenomenal feature of
our first-person perspective on the world. Rather, these two things dissoci-
ate both conceptually and experientially. The first-person perspective, or
the subject to whom the world is given in a first-personal mode of presen-
tation, is thus phenomenologically and ontologically prior to the narrative
self. According to Shaun Gallagher, this minimal self is
[p]henomenologically, that is, in terms of how one experiences it, a consciousness
of oneself as an immediate subject of experience, unextended in time. The minimal
self almost certainly depends on brain processes and an ecologically embedded
body, but one does not have to know or be aware of this to have an experience that
still counts as a [minimal, or pre-narrative] self-experience.
(Gallagher 2000: 15)

This minimal self is the subject of experiences which provide pre-narrative

fodder for later narratives (Menary 2008: 73). But again, the subject or
minimal self that has these experiences pre-exists the narratives it later
constructs.
It might help to mark a conceptual distinction between the notions of
‘self ’ (i.e. the immediate, moment-to-moment experience of being a first-
person perspective on the world) and ‘person’ (i.e. the broader experience
of being an entity that endures through time). As we’ve already seen, we
find a similar distinction made from within the classical Indian Buddhist
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 39

tradition14 which, to reiterate, recognizes two central forms of self-experience:

(1) svasam
vedana, or the immanently self-reflexive awareness consciousness has
of itself, and (2) aham
kāra, or ‘I-maker’ self-awareness, which is the temporally
extended sense of oneself as a single, enduring entity, ontologically distinct
from the stream of experience.15 While the former is the more phenomeno-
logically primitive form of self-experience, the latter is arguably the notion of
self we think of when someone asks the question, ‘Who are you?’. When we
consider ourselves as individuals with unique hopes, aspirations, and inten-
tions—as singular individuals importantly distinct from others, and with a
moral and existential status uniquely our own—we are thinking of ourselves
as narrative persons, in an encompassing mode of ‘I-maker’ awareness.16
However, if we accept that this self/person distinction is a coherent
conceptual distinction, it seems that, in order to be a person, one must
already be a self, since one cannot have a holistic ‘I-maker’ experience of
personhood (including the elements of one’s narratives, such as character,
personality traits, memories, convictions, motivations, and the sense of a
unified existential history spread out over time) unless one is already a
subject of experience in some minimal sense. The minimal phenomenal
self thus has persistence conditions distinct from those of narrative persons.
Narrative self-models, in both their weaker enhancement form as well as
their stronger constitution form, are more accurately understood to be
models, not of selves, but of persons (Zahavi 2005: 129).
To underscore this distinction between self and person, and to reinforce
the experiential primacy of some sort of minimal phenomenal self, we can
look to a number of empirical studies. Consider first Antonio Damasio’s

14 For the sake of historical precision, it should be noted that not all schools of Indian Buddhism hold
that cognition is self-reflexive (e.g. Mādhyamika thinkers such as Candrakı̄rti (ca. 600–650) and
Śāntideva (fl. 8th century)).
15 To be clear, while Buddhism acknowledges a phenomenological distinction between the two
forms of self-experience I am here distinguishing, the terms ‘person’ and ‘self ’ are used somewhat
differently within Buddhist philosophy. A person (pudgalā) is simply a causally continuous, psychophysi-
cal complex of different aggregates (skandhas) arranged in the right sort of way. And with the exception
of the Pudgalavāda tradition of early Buddhism, most Buddhists believe that the person is ultimately
reducible to this psychophysical complex, that is, the person has no independent existence over and
above it. The self (ātman), as an experiential feature, is thus an aspect of this causal series, and is as
impermanent as is every other aspect.
16 See also Albahari (this volume) for more on ordinary, and ultimately delusive, forms of self-
experience.
40 JOEL W. KRUEGER

(1999) discussion of David, a 46-year-old patient suffering from an unusually

drastic form of memory loss brought on by a severe case of encephalitis. In
the span of a few weeks, David’s encephalitis caused major damage to his left
and right temporal lobes. The result of this damage was that David lost both
the ability to retain any new facts in memory, as well as the ability to recall
‘virtually any thing, individual, or event, from his entire life’—meaning that
‘his memory loss goes almost all the way to the cradle’ (Damasio 1999: 115).
David lives in an ever-shifting window of short-term memory: about forty-
five seconds (Damasio 1999: 118). In virtue of his radical memory loss,
David has lost the ability to construct any sort of narrative unity to his life
and actions; he is incapable of forming a narrative self, or what Damasio
terms an ‘autobiographical self ’, which according to Damasio emerges from
the ‘extended consciousness’ stretching across the whole of a person’s life
(Damasio 1999: 17).
Nevertheless, David retains a minimal self. David presents rich phenom-
enal consciousness. He ‘fares perfectly well on the core consciousness
checklist’ (Damasio 1999: 116).17 David exhibits attentive wakefulness; his
experiences are colored by various background emotions, and he articulates
preferences; he acts purposively within the situations he enters into. In
short, David has preserved an experiential self, and he is immediately
aware of himself as an experiential self, aware that the content of his
moment-to-moment experience is his. Yet David has completely lost the
sense of himself as a historically extended, narratively structured person—
precisely because, with the catastrophic erosion of his memory, he no
longer has the ability to explicate himself as such.
Work on neonatal imitation also lends support to the self/person distinc-
tion as well as to the experiential primacy of the minimal self. Multiple studies
indicate that neonates come into the world with a proprioceptive self: a
minimal form of self-awareness emerging from very basic experiences of
themselves as embodied and situated creatures. This minimal self-awareness
enables neonates less than an hour old to imitate a range of facial, vocal, and
gestural expressions (Meltzoff and Moore 1977, 1983, 1997; Kugiumutzakis
1985, 1999). These imitative episodes appear to be intentional, in that they
are not merely reflexive but rather indicate a capacity to learn to match

17 ‘Core consciousness’ is Damasio’s expression for our moment-to-moment sense of being an awake
and experiencing subject (i.e. a minimal self ) (Damasio 1999: 16).
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 41

the presented gesture (Meltzoff and Moore 1983). Neonate imitation pre-
supposes three significant pre-narrative capacities, all of which themselves
presuppose an experienced sense of minimal phenomenal selfhood: (1) the
capacity for experientially distinguishing self and other; (2) the capacity for
locating and using body parts proprioceptively, that is, without vision (since
neonates haven’t yet seen their bodies); (3) the capacity to recognize the
presented face as of the same kind as its own face (neonates don’t imitate non-
human objects). As Shaun Gallagher notes, ‘One possible interpretation of
this finding is that these three capacities present in neonates constitute a
primitive self-consciousness, and that the human infant is already equipped
with a minimal self that is embodied, enactive, and ecologically attuned’
(Gallagher 2000: 17). Of course, since neonates lack the linguistic capacities
needed to construct and comprehend narratives, they have no sense of
themselves as a narrative entity, that is, as a person. Nevertheless, neonate
imitation research indicates that a minimal sort of self-experience, the sense of
being a unified, embodied perspective on the world, is present from birth.
At this point, there are several potential responses that defenders of NCA
might offer. Schechtman, for example, concedes a conceptual distinction
between self and person but argues that narratives are nonetheless central to
both categories (Schechtman 2007: 171). In order to constitute oneself as a
narrative person, ‘one must recognize oneself as continuing, see past actions
and experiences as having implications for one’s current rights and respon-
sibilities, and recognize a future that will be impacted by the past and
present’ (Schechtman 2007: 170). A narrative self, Schechtman continues,
is constituted by assimilating temporally remote actions and experiences
into my present self-experience in such as way that these events ‘condition
the quality of present experience in the strongest sense, unifying conscious-
ness over time through affective connections and identification’ (Schecht-
man 2007: 171).
But the problem with Schechtmans’s distinction here is that, again, it is
pitched at too high a level of explanation, passing over features of phenom-
enal consciousness and forms of self-experience that seem to be independent
of narrative. It is also a strikingly disembodied account of self-constitution.
Which of these two forms of narrative constitution, for instance, as defined
by Schechtman, apply to Damasio’s David? Certainly not the first, since
David lacks a robust sense of having a created history that constrains his
present actions and decisions. Similarly, while David’s consciousness seems
42 JOEL W. KRUEGER

to present a unified character, it’s not clear that this phenomenal unity is the
result of any kind of narratively structured process of ‘affective connection
and identification’. David’s capacity for memory is simply too impoverished
to speak this way: the unity of his phenomenal experience must thus be due
to a different mechanism. Schechtman might respond by urging that, even
within a short forty-five second window, David can still construct ‘micro-
narratives’ that unify his experiences and allow him to make affective
connections with temporally remote actions and events (e.g. the door he
opened ten seconds ago while walking into the room, or the initiation of his
reach to grasp a light bulb that needs changing). But this is an awfully
strained way of using the term ‘narrative’, since the temporal extension
and social character of these sorts of micro-narratives is exceedingly limited.
Moreover, it’s not at all clear that we need appeal to narrative to explain
certain fundamental forms of embodied self-experience and skillfulness.
This becomes clear by returning to the neonatal imitation studies men-
tioned previously. Again, it’s difficult to discern how Schechtman’s distinc-
tion would be neatly applied to these cases. Far from a ‘blooming and
buzzing’ model of experience, it now appears that even very young infants
present a surprisingly rich form of self-awareness rooted in an ecological
experience of their body and their body’s practical relation to the world.
They seem to grasp implicitly that they have a body, and they feel that this
body can be made to do things, including imitate the expressions and
gestures of others—despite neither having seen their body nor possessing
any sort of linguistic or narrative understanding of it. This capacity points
towards a range of embodied self-experience and skills (e.g. neonatal imita-
tion, reaching for and grasping a cup, driving a car, responding to an
opponent’s volley while playing tennis) that operate without narrative
intervention. Additionally, our ability to enact pre-narrative embodied skills
so efficiently suggests that there exists a primitive form of bodily self-
experience that is independent of narrative articulation. The young infant
is immediately acquainted with its body and the things its body can do;
the skilled driver and tennis player enact dynamically coherent, context-
sensitive sequences of complicated motor actions that unfold without the
explicit guidance of narrative scripts. This immediate acquaintance with
oneself as an embodied perspective on the world is a phenomenologically
minimal form of self-experience.
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 43

Schechtman might respond by arguing that some narratives operate un-

consciously, that is, some narratives are implicit narratives that guide action and
determine the appropriate responses in a given context, but that they do so
without ever reaching the level of phenomenal awareness. In fact, she has
done just this (Schechtman 1996: 115–117). But like the micro-narrative
rejoinder, this, too, is a problematic move. For, pushing narratives down to
the murky levels of subpersonal representation compromises their fundamen-
tally public or social character, and transforms them into computational
processes hidden away inside the brain (Menary 2008: 71). Additionally,
it makes it more difficult to see why implicit narratives, if they have a
subpersonal character, ought to be explanatorily prioritized over other
kinds of subpersonal processes when it comes to understanding the constitu-
tion of the self. This is not to deny that Schechtman’s rich narrative account of
self has significant explanatory value. Again, the point is simply that there exist
more basic pre-narrative forms of self-experience that Schechtman’s account,
and indeed NCA accounts more generally, can’t satisfactorily account for.
The take-away lesson is that personhood is a more articulated, but
ultimately derivative notion, phenomenologically and ontologically depen-
dent upon the experiential primacy of a minimal phenomenal self. The
minimal self is therefore a condition of possibility for developing more
articulated forms of narrative personhood: pre-narrative experiences give
structure to, and provide content for, narratives (Menary 2008: 79). But
narrativity is not essential to phenomenal consciousness the way that some
minimal form of self-experience is. Now, having spent some time discussing
aspects of the narrative self and arguing for the experiential primacy of the
minimal phenomenal self, I want to investigate next the structure of the
minimal self more carefully before then questioning whether it is warranted
to speak of this form of self-experience as a substantial self.

6. First-Personal Givenness and the Minimal Self

As should by now be clear, the concept of the minimal self is motivated by
the intuition that ‘even if all of the unessential features of self are stripped
away . . . there is still some basic, immediate, or primitive “something” that
we are willing to call a self ’ (Gallagher 2000: 15). Unlike the narrative
account of self, this intuition brackets considerations of the self ’s historicity
44 JOEL W. KRUEGER

and sociality, and looks instead to excavate a more fundamental dimension

of phenomenal consciousness.18 According to its defenders, the minimal self
is something I can fail to articulate (i.e. give narrative expression to), but
something that I cannot fail to be (Zahavi 2005: 116). Every moment that I
am conscious is another moment that I am, or have, a minimal self. This is a
thoroughly phenomenological conception of the self, casting the self as an
experiential dimension, central to the very structure of consciousness. Since
Dan Zahavi is the most ardent current defender of this view, in what follows
I will focus critically on his characterization of the minimal self.
There are a number of ways of arguing for the existence of the minimal self.
One line of argument follows the discussion of the previous section: namely,
the idea that narrative accounts of self (as well as other forms of self-experi-
ence similarly dependent upon having the appropriate reflective, linguistic,
and/or conceptual capacities) are pitched at too high an explanatory level.
These approaches pass over more subtle, but no less significant, pre-narrative
forms of self-experience central to the phenomenal nature of consciousness
qua consciousness. Damasio’s discussion of David, as well as research on infant
imitation, both indicate a minimal phenomenal self-experience present prior
to, or in the absence of, narrative constructs. This is because ‘every conscious
state, be it a perception, an emotion, a recollection, or an abstract belief, has a
certain subjective character, a certain phenomenal quality of “what it is like”
to live through, or undergo, that state. This is what makes the mental state in
question conscious’ (Zahavi 2005: 119). The phenomenality of a conscious
state, the argument goes, is independent of its narrative structure. Further-
more, it discloses a primitive kind of self. Any organism capable of phenome-
nal consciousness thus has a minimal self.
Two key ideas are central to understanding Zahavi’s formulation of the
minimal self: ‘first-personal givenness’ and ‘mineness’. I will look at these
ideas in turn. Zahavi contends that we need to make a conceptual distinction
between, on one hand, what the object is like for the subject, and on the other,
what the experience of the object is like for the subject (Zahavi 2005: 121).
Importantly, this is merely a conceptual distinction allowing us to grasp the
world-directed structure of consciousness. For, within each conscious state,
these aspects are unified parts of a coherent experience. Echoing Dharma-

18 Sartre argues that, ‘pre-reflective consciousness is self-consciousness. It is this same notion of self
which must be studied, for it defines the very being of consciousness’ (Sartre 1943/1956: 123).
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 45

kı̄rti’s assertion discussed above, Zahavi argues that, when I have an experi-
ence of an object, such as visually perceiving a tomato on a table, part of my
subjective experience is constituted by properties of the object (i.e. redness,
smoothness, roundness, etc.). These properties play a central role in fixing
the phenomenal character of a given state. But these properties, in fact, do
not exhaust the phenomenal character. There is another, more subtle,
phenomenological aspect present: namely, the phenomenal property of
experiencing myself experiencing. Put differently, I experience these features of
the object in a mode of first-personal givenness, a mode of disclosure that is a
phenomenologically basic form of reflexive self-experience. Zahavi writes:
This first-personal givenness of experiential phenomena is not something incidental
to their being, a mere varnish that the experiences could lack without ceasing to be
experiences. On the contrary, this first-personal givenness makes the experience
subjective. To put it another way, their first-personal givenness entails a built-in self-
reference, a primitive experiential self-referentiality . . . the experiential dimension
does not have to do with the existence of ineffable qualia; it has to do with the
dimension of first-personal experiencing.
(Zahavi 2005: 122–23)

Therefore, what makes a particular conscious state subjective is that it is

always given in a first-personal mode of presentation: it involves a first-
person perspective that is implicated within the very manner of how
experiential content is manifest to the subject. This first-person perspective
provides the structure through which the world presents itself within a
given state. Again Zahavi:
Phenomenology pays attention to the givenness of the object, but it does not
simply focus on the object exactly as it is given; it also focuses on the subjective side
of consciousness, thereby illuminating our subjective accomplishments and the
intentionality that is at play in order for the object to appear as it does.
(Zahavi 2005: 123)

Echoing Dharmakı̄rti once more, Zahavi insists that the dimension of first-
personal experiencing does not involve any sort of higher-order act of
reflection or perception.19 Rather, the minimal self is what originally

19 Zahavi is critical of higher-order (both HOT and HOP) theories of consciousness (Zahavi 2005:
17–20).
46 JOEL W. KRUEGER

makes possible higher-order acts of self-reflection and objectifying thema-

tization in the first place. Self-reflection necessarily presupposes a more
phenomenologically primitive perspective (i.e. that of a minimal self ),
capable of initiating higher-order objectifying acts of self-reflection.20 The
first-person givenness of conscious states is thus immanently self-reflexive,
that is, it is ‘an intrinsic feature of the primary experience’ (Zahavi 2005: 17).
This is simply another way of saying that ‘[w]hen we investigate appearing
objects, we also disclose ourselves as datives of manifestation, as those to
whom objects appear’ (Zahavi 2005: 123). What is disclosed is the minimal
phenomenal self.
What about ‘mineness’? According to Zahavi, mineness is a quality of
the various modes of first-personal givenness (e.g. perceptual, imaginative,
recollective, etc.) through which intentional content is given. Mineness
reveals a conscious state’s being owned, that is, a state’s being immediately
recognized as given to, or for, a particular subject (or minimal self ). For
‘[w]hen I (in nonpathological standard cases) am aware of an occurrent
pain, perception, or thought from the first-person perspective, the experi-
ence in question is given immediately, noninferentially, and noncriterially
as mine’ (Zahavi 2005: 124). Once more, however, mineness is an invariant
structural feature of consciousness. It is a ‘subtle background presence’
pervading various modes of first-personal givenness, and is not the product
of an explicit act of self-reflection or self-perception (Zahavi 2005: 124).
To clarify further: mineness is a qualitative feature of consciousness itself
(i.e. an experiential property), independent of the properties (e.g. the
redness or smoothness of a tomato on a table) that intentional objects are
presented as having. Taken together, Zahavi argues that the twin notions
of first-personal givenness and mineness offer us a minimal, but phenome-
nologically significant, rendering of the self that ‘is not something that
stands opposed to the stream of consciousness, but is, rather, immersed in
conscious life; it is an integral part of its structure’ (Zahavi 2005: 125).
Before turning to critical analysis, we can note that there is much to
recommend Zahavi’s view. First, it is of immense historical-philosophical

20 Consciousness, Mark Rowlands observes, is essentially a ‘hybrid entity’ that can be both object and
act of experience (Rowlands 2001: 122). Zahavi insists that the modality of the former is dependent upon
the modality of the latter—and thus that consciousness-as-act (of which the minimal self is an essential
part) is phenomenologically primitive.
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 47

interest, unifying and deepening a common thread in the work of a number

of prominent phenomenologists. More substantially, it helps us get a grip on
a particularly elusive feature of experience that is difficult to pin down.
Zahavi challenges the widely held view that phenomenal consciousness is
genuinely diaphanous. For, if we are pre-reflectively aware of an occurrent
phenomenal state as ours—if conscious states are immanently self-reflexive,
in other words, as Zahavi (and, indeed, Dharmakı̄rti) argues that they are—
consciousness thus contains more than simply the representational content
of its intentional object(s). Each state harbors a pre-reflective self-awareness
of the minimal self to whom the state is given. The phenomenal character of
consciousness is thus not exhausted by the items that conscious states are
conscious of: there is more to experience than its content. And any theory
of consciousness worth its salt has to account for this subtle, but essential,
feature of experience.
However, to put the objection simply (and this is really the heart of this
paper): has Zahavi successfully shown that the minimal self is a self ? Is his truly
an egological conception of consciousness? Zahavi answers both questions in
the affirmative. The minimal self, according to Zahavi, is an invariant struc-
tural feature of consciousness that remains constant throughout the life of the
subject: ‘Whereas we live through a number of different experiences, the
dimension of first-personal experiencing remains the same . . . it may be
described as an invariant dimension of first-personal givenness throughout
the multitude of changing experiences’ (Zahavi 2005: 132). On the face
of it, this is an intuitive claim that seems to square with the sense that we
are, in fact, the same self throughout the course of our respective lives.
(Dharmakı̄rti, recall, also concedes the intuitive force of this sense of being
a single stable self.) But, given his phenomenological characterization of
the minimal self, is Zahavi justified in making this claim? I suggest he is
not. Specifically, I want to challenge the idea that the minimal self is
indeed a self—that is, if we take the self to be invariant (i.e. a singularly
unified, enduring, and unconditioned thing that stays the same through
the life of the conscious subject). In the remainder of this paper, I will
argue that Zahavi is, at best, warranted in speaking of minimal selves, not
a minimal self. In this sense, his account is actually compatible with the
no-self view developed by Dharmakı̄rti.
48 JOEL W. KRUEGER

7. Minimal Self as Stream, Structure,

or Something Else?
To begin, the Buddhist would likely offer the following question to Zahavi:
what aspect of our experience is invariant, exactly? What precisely stays the
same? Zahavi’s response is: the first-personal ‘experiential dimension’ within
which phenomena are given. And this answer, Zahavi would continue, is
enough to qualify his view as an egological theory of consciousness. There
seem to be at least two ways of cashing out this idea, however, and Zahavi’s
discussion of the minimal self seems at times to conflate these two options.
Yet I want to suggest that they need to be kept conceptually distinct—and
moreover, that neither is adequate for establishing the invariant ‘selfness’ of
the minimal self. For the sake of simplicity, I will speak of the minimal self
characterized (1) as stream, versus the minimal self characterized (2) as structure.
Like Dharmakı̄rti, Zahavi insists that the minimal self is distinct from the
intentional object. It is on the act side of the consciousness-object relation.
But the minimal self is not then distinct from our conscious acts themselves.
Rather, Zahavi further insists that the minimal self is part of the very stream
of our world-directed conscious activity. Just as it is not reducible to the
narratives that develop subsequent to our experiences, the minimal self is
also neither an ego-pole nor a distinct principle of identity standing behind,
or apart from, the phenomenal stream (Zahavi 2005: 106). Again, it is
located within the stream as ‘an integral part of its structure’ (Zahavi 2005:
125), that is, as ‘a feature or function of its givenness’ (Zahavi 2005: 106).
The minimal ‘stream self ’ therefore exhibits a relational dynamism as part of
its character. It is constituted immanently within the activity of the mind’s
encounter with the world. This situatedness within the stream of conscious-
ness is what allows the minimal self to account for the unity of experience,
and is what leads us to ascribe past, present, and future experiences to a
single, enduring subject.
But note carefully some of Zahavi’s other descriptions. Of egological
views (which he insists that his view is), Zahavi writes:
An egological theory would claim that that when I watch a movie by Bergman,
I am not only intentionally directed at the movie, nor merely aware of the movie
being watched, I am also aware that it is being watched by me, that is, that I am
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 49

watching the movie. In short, there is an object of experience (the watching), and
there is a subject of experience, myself.
(Zahavi 2005: 99)

And in characterizing the non-egological, or no-self view, Zahavi continues:

In contrast, a non-egological theory . . . would deny that every experience is for a subject.
It would, in other words, omit any reference to a subject of experience and simply say
that there is an awareness of the watching of the movie . . . minimal self-awareness
should, consequently, be understood as the acquaintance that consciousness has with
itself and not as an awareness of the experiencing self.
(Zahavi 2005: 100)

Yet there is a tension here. Recall Zahavi’s earlier claim that the minimal
self is simply a ‘feature or function’ of the first-personal givenness or ‘self-
luminosity’ (Zahavi 2005: 62) of the phenomenal stream. In fact, at one
point Zahavi urges that, in order to understand his insistence that the
minimal self be identified with the first-personal character of phenomenal
consciousness, we ought to ‘replace the traditional phrase “subject of
experience” with the phrase “subjectivity of experience”’ (Zahavi 2005:
126). This is because the former seems to imply an autonomous, stream-
independent ego—which Zahavi denies—whereas the latter adequately
captures the sort of immanent stream self Zahavi endorses. The minimal
self thus is, simply, the subjectivity of experience (which includes the various
features that Zahavi carefully analyzes). But if this is all that the minimal self
is, it seems that Zahavi is really endorsing the sort of non-egological view
he claims to be opposing! Nothing in this characterization of the self-
luminosity of the phenomenal stream is in conflict with Dharmakı̄rti’s
view—except for the final step Zahavi wants to make in reifying the stream
self into something permanent and invariant.21
To the question, ‘Where is the minimal self ?’, Zahavi clearly answers, ‘In
the stream of consciousness itself ’. But if we now return to our earlier

21 To be fair, Zahavi himself notes that the simple distinction between egological and non-egological
views of consciousness (e.g. Gurwitsch 1941) is far too crude, and therefore that more subtle ways of
characterizing the relation between consciousness and self-consciousness are needed (Zahavi 2005: 146).
However, Zahavi’s stated desire to pinpoint various ‘invariant’ structures of experience (e.g. the ipseity of
the 1st person experiential dimension)—coupled with, moreover, his argument that these structures
qualify as a minimal form of selfhood—would seem to indicate that Zahavi sees himself as aligned with
the egological camp, even if his particular approach is more nuanced than traditional egological views
(see Zahavi 2005: 99).
50 JOEL W. KRUEGER

question, ‘What aspect of experience (i.e. the stream self ) is invariant?’, it

is not clear that Zahavi has a ready-to-hand answer. For, if the minimal-
self-as-stream-self is composed of the same aspects of the phenomenal
stream, it is every bit as impermanent, that is, empty (śūnya) of fixed or
intrinsic self-nature (svabhāva) as is the dynamically flowing, relationally
constituted stream itself. Put otherwise, the stream exhibits a dependently
conditioned (pratı̄tya-samutpanna) nature, dynamically constituted by the
ongoing interplay of successive acts and contents. The minimal self, as the
phenomenal stream, simply refers to the dynamic coherence of the phe-
nomenal stream in the first-personal givenness of its flowing. But there is nothing
fixed, stable, or enduring about this stream (or indeed, the stream self )—
save for its fundamental impermanence. It seems, then, that the Buddhist
could charge Zahavi with what Thomas Metzinger has called the ‘error of
phenomenological reification’ (Metzinger 2003: 22): mistaking the mine-
ness, or immanently self-reflexive character of experience, for a stable or
permanent me. Likewise, Dharmakı̄rti would invoke the image of a candle,
asserting that it is a similar mistake to infer the sameness of the candle flame
at each moment from the enduring presence of illumination. Though the
self-reflexive character of individual conscious states provides a persistent
source of illumination, the self-reflexivity behind this illumination is, in fact,
the property of distinct, impermanent, ever-flowing states.22
A presupposition of Zahavi’s resistance to non-egological views seems to
be the assumption that such views must eject subjectivity from their char-
acterizations of consciousness to render them truly ‘selfless’. And Zahavi
rightly resists any model of consciousness that looks to jettison its phenom-
enal character (e.g. Dennett 1979, 1991). But as should now be clear, this
presupposition is not warranted. Dharmakı̄rti, who certainly argues for a
no-self view of consciousness, is quite insistent that subjectivity nevertheless
needs to be at the center of any model of consciousness. He simply resists
Zahavi’s final, reifying move of identifying subjectivity with a permanent
self. For Dharmakı̄rti, the self-reflexive character of occurrent phenomenal
states does, indeed, refer back to a phenomenal self: a subject or first-person
perspective to whom the content of these states is phenomenally manifest.
But again, this phenomenal self is dependently conditioned by, or arises
from, the dynamic interplay of successive acts and objects, which means that

22 But see Fasching (this volume) for a response to this objection.

 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 51

it has no intrinsic self-nature. It isn’t some thing distinct from this interplay.
It is the interplay itself. As such, it is fundamentally impermanent, arising
and passing away within the continual stream of ever-new acts and contents.
Thus, Dharmakı̄rti would likely be content to speak of numerically distinct
minimal selves: dependently conditioned, temporary subjects that arise,
exist, and pass away within the span of an occurrent episode of conscious-
ness. And if this analysis of Zahavi’s view of the minimal self is correct, it
seems that Zahavi, too, is warranted only in speaking of a plurality of
numerically distinct, minimal phenomenal selves.23 For the first-personal
givenness of experience, according to Zahavi, is phenomenally conditioned
by experiential phenomena (i.e. objects of experience)—and vice versa.
Experiential phenomena are never given anonymously, but always first-
personally. Thus, first-personal givenness and experiential phenomena are
necessarily co-given. But since experience is always in flux, an ever-flowing
stream of (first-personal) acts and first-personally given experiential phe-
nomena (i.e. objects)—and since, moreover, the minimal phenomenal self is
identical with its experiences, as Zahavi argues—it follows that the stream
self is constantly changing. In other words, there is no numerically identical
minimal phenomenal self. Rather, there is simply a phenomenal continuum
of minimal selves, each ensuring that experiential phenomena are manifest
in a mode of first-personal givenness.
But this is not the end of the matter. For at times Zahavi also seems to
characterize the minimal self, not in terms of its stream character, but rather
its structural character, that is, the minimal self understood purely as a formal
structure of consciousness. For instance, he writes that, ‘As long as we focus
on the first-personal mode of givenness of the stream of consciousness, we
are dealing with a kind of pure, formal, and empty individuality which the
subject shares with all other subjects’ (Zahavi 1999: 165). But if the minimal
self is merely an empty structural feature of consciousness, how is the
phenomenal character of experience individuated? How does subjectivity
become my subjectivity? For a purely formal feature of consciousness—
whether it be minimal selfhood, intentionality, its field-like structure, or
something else—cannot in itself exhibit phenomenal character. Formal
features are conditions of possibility for consciousness to occur the particular

23 This would also bring Zahavi closer to Galen Strawson who, as Strawson himself notes, shares
some affinities with the Buddhist view of the self (Strawson 1999a: 18).
52 JOEL W. KRUEGER

way that it does; they cannot be given to consciousness, much the same way
that an eye cannot see itself. These features need to be phenomenally ‘filled
in’ via the dynamic interplay of acts and contents.
Zahavi recognizes this objection. He says that, as a formal feature of
consciousness, the minimal self ’s phenomenal character
only manifests itself on the personal level, in its individual history, in its moral and
intellectual convictions. It is through these acts that I define myself; they have
character-shaping effect. I remain the same as long as I adhere to my convictions.
When they change, I change. Since these convictions and endorsed values are
intrinsically social, we are once more confronted with the idea that the ego in its
full scope and concretion cannot be thought or understood in isolation from the
Other. The ego is only fully individualized when personalized, and this happens
only intersubjectively.
(Zahavi 1999: 166)

But the problem with this reply is that it seems to appeal to a narrative
conception of self to explain how the unique particularities of my identity
are constituted. And this is fine, except that narratives, too, are by definition
impermanent. They are the result of multiple authors, and are constantly
being retold and revised. Moreover, I am rarely the sole author of my own
self-narrative, and thus my identity is, to a very large degree, dependently
conditioned by others. My narrative self thus constantly develops and
changes, taking on new elements while abandoning other outmoded or
forgotten elements. As Zahavi puts it, ‘Therefore, I, we, and world belong
together’ (Zahavi 1999: 166). The narrative self depends on others for its
existence: it is relationally constituted. Put otherwise, it lacks intrinsic self-
nature, as the Buddhist would argue, and is thus empty of fixed or perma-
nent character. Additionally, appealing to narrative self-models to explain
how subjectivity is individuated still encounters the challenge discussed
earlier: namely, a failure to explain pre-narrative forms of phenomenal
self-experience. So, a story of the pre-narrative minimal stream self is still
needed to explain how the structural self is individuated, phenomenally
speaking. But as I have just argued, this way of characterizing the self cannot
establish the self ’s fundamental invariance, either. So it seems that, by
appealing to either narrative or minimal self-models (including the latter
understood either as stream or as structure), we’ve yet to pinpoint the
resting place for a stable, permanent, or enduring self.
 THE WHO AND THE HOW OF EXPERIENCE 53

8. Concluding Thoughts
In this paper, I have attempted to show that Buddhist philosophy offers a
characterization of consciousness that (1) foregrounds its phenomenal char-
acter, but which (2) denies that this phenomenal character entails the
existence of a fixed, enduring, or unconditioned self. I then examined
two contemporary self-models: the narrative self and the minimal self, and
summoned empirical research in support of my claim that the latter is
dissociable from, and, indeed, experientially prior to, the former. Finally,
I’ve looked more closely at Dan Zahavi’s lucid defense of the minimal self,
and offered reasons for thinking that, while his discussion rightly explicates
several core features of phenomenal consciousness, it nevertheless fails to
establish the necessary existence of a stable, fixed, or enduring self that stays
the same throughout the life of the conscious subject. Buddhism claims that
we are fundamentally empty persons—despite strong and persistent forms of
self-experience that seem to suggest the contrary. It remains to be seen, of
course, if this claim is ultimately true. But if the above analysis is correct, it’s
a view at least worth taking seriously.

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 2
The Experiential Self: Objections
and Clarifications
DAN ZAHAVI

1. Introduction
Let me start with three quotes from Sartre’s L’être et le néant—three quotes
that conjointly articulate a view of consciousness that I think is widespread
among phenomenologists, and which I personally endorse.
It is not reflection which reveals the consciousness reflected-on to itself. Quite the
contrary, it is the non-reflective consciousness which renders the reflection possi-
ble; there is a pre-reflective cogito which is the condition of the Cartesian cogito.
(Sartre 2003: 9)

This self-consciousness we ought to consider not as a new consciousness, but as the

only mode of existence which is possible for a consciousness of something.
(Sartre 2003: 10)
[P]re-reflective consciousness is self-consciousness. It is this same notion of self
which must be studied, for it defines the very being of consciousness.
(Sartre 2003: 100)

What is Sartre saying here? First of all, on Sartre’s view, an experience does
not simply exist, it exists in such a way that it is implicitly self-given, or as
Sartre puts it, it is ‘for itself ’. This self-givenness of experience is not simply
a quality added to the experience, a mere varnish: rather for Sartre the very
mode of being of intentional consciousness is to be for-itself (pour-soi), that is,
self-conscious (Sartre 1967, 2003: 10). Sartre is, moreover, quite explicit in
emphasizing that the self-consciousness in question is not a new conscious-
ness. It is not something added to the experience, an additional mental state,
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 57

but rather an intrinsic feature of the experience.1 When speaking of self-

consciousness as a permanent feature of consciousness, Sartre is, conse-
quently, not referring to what we might call reflective self-consciousness.
Reflection (or higher-order representation) is the process whereby con-
sciousness directs its intentional aim at itself, thereby taking itself as its own
object. According to Sartre, however, this type of self-consciousness is
derived; it involves a subject-object split, and the attempt to account for
self-consciousness in such terms is, for Sartre, bound to fail. It either gen-
erates an infinite regress or accepts a non-conscious starting point, and he
considers both options unacceptable (Sartre 2003: 8).
According to Sartre, the right alternative is to accept the existence of a
pre-reflective and non-objectifying form of self-consciousness. To put it
differently, on his account, consciousness has two different modes of given-
ness, a pre-reflective and a reflective. The first has priority since it can
prevail independently of the latter, whereas reflective self-consciousness
always presupposes pre-reflective self-consciousness. So to repeat, for Sartre
pre-reflective self-consciousness is not an addendum to, but a constitutive
moment of the original intentional experience.
In a subsequent move, Sartre then argues that consciousness, far from
being impersonal and anonymous, is characterized by a fundamental selfness
or selfhood precisely because of this pervasive self-givenness, self-intimation,
or reflexivity. To quote the central passage from Sartre once again:
‘pre-reflective consciousness is self-consciousness. It is this same notion of
self which must be studied, for it defines the very being of consciousness.’

2. The Experiential Self

One way to interpret Sartre’s final claim is as follows. Sartre (along with
other phenomenologists) is drawing attention to a specific aspect of our
experiential life, one that is so close to us, so taken for granted, that we tend

1 Let me emphasize that the choice of the term ‘intrinsic’ is precisely meant to emphasize the
difference from a higher-order or reflection-based account of self-consciousness, where self-conscious-
ness is conceived in terms of a relation between two mental states. The term is not meant to indicate that
we are dealing with a feature that our experiences possess in complete independence of everything else.
To put it differently, to talk of self-consciousness as an intrinsic feature of experience is not to deny that
the (self-conscious) experience in question is also intentional and world-directed.
58 DAN ZAHAVI

to overlook it. As illustration, consider the following example. Imagine a

situation where you first see a green apple and then see a yellow lemon.
Then imagine that your visual perception of the yellow lemon is succeeded
by a recollection of the yellow lemon. How should we describe the
phenomenal complexity? One rather natural way to do so (which leaves
out the fact and added complication that the whole scenario is played out in
the imagination) is as follows: First, we have an intentional act of a specific
type (a perception) which is directed at a specific object (an apple). Then
we retain the intentional act-type (the perception), but replace the apple
with another object (a lemon). In a final step, we replace the perception
with another act-type (a recollection) while retaining the second object.
By going through these variations, we succeed in establishing that an
investigation of our experiential life shouldn’t merely focus on the various
intentional objects we can be directed at, but that it also has to consider
the different intentional types or attitudes we can adopt. This is all trivial.
But then consider the following question. If we compare the initial situation
where we perceived a green apple with the final situation where we
recollected a yellow lemon, there has been a change of both the object
and the intentional type. Does such a change leave nothing unchanged in
the experiential flow? Is the difference between the first experience and the
last experience as radical as the difference between my current experience
and the current experience of someone else? We should deny this. What-
ever their type, whatever their object, there is something that the different
experiences have in common. Not only is the first experience retained by
the last experience, but the different experiences are all characterized by the
same fundamental first-personal self-givenness. They are all characterized by
what might be called a dimension of for-me-ness or mineness (Sartre uses the
term ipseity—selfhood—from the Latin, ipse). It is, however, important to
point to the special nature of this mineness. It is not meant to suggest that
I own the experiences in a way that is even remotely similar to the way
I possess external objects of various sorts (a car, my trousers, or a house in
Sweden). Nor should it be seen primarily as a contrastive determination.
When young children start to use the possessive pronoun, it frequently
means ‘not yours’. But as Husserl observes in one of his manuscripts, when
it comes to the peculiar mineness (Meinheit) characterizing experiential life,
this can and should be understood without any contrasting others (Husserl
1973b: 351), although it may form the basis of the self-other discrimination.
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 59

Some might object that there is no property common to all my experiences,

no stamp or label that clearly identifies them as mine. But this objection is
misplaced in that it looks for the commonality in the wrong place. The for-
me-ness or mineness in question is not a quality like scarlet, sour, or soft. It
doesn’t refer to a specific experiential content, to a specific what, nor does it
refer to the diachronic or synchronic sum of such content, or to some other
relation that might obtain between the contents in question. Rather, it refers
to the distinct givenness or how of experience. It refers to the first-personal
presence of experience. It refers to the fact that the experiences I am living
through are given differently (but not necessarily better) to me than to
anybody else. It could consequently be claimed that anybody who denies
the for-me-ness or mineness of experience simply fails to recognize an
essential constitutive aspect of experience. Such a denial would be tantamount
to a denial of the first-person perspective. It would entail the view that my
own mind is either not given to me at all—I would be mind- or self-blind—or
present to me in exactly the same way as the minds of others.
Sartre’s basic move, which is to link the notion of self to pre-reflective
self-consciousness, is nicely captured in a formulation by another French
phenomenologist, Michel Henry, who writes that the most basic form of
selfhood is the one constituted by the very self-manifestation of experience
(Henry 1963: 581, 1965: 53). But who or what is this self that has, or lives
through, the experiences? The phenomenological account I favor can be
seen as occupying a kind of middle position between two opposing views.
According to the first view, the self is some kind of unchanging soul
substance that is distinct from, and ontologically independent of, the mental
experiences and worldly objects it is the subject of. According to the second
view, there is nothing to consciousness apart from a manifold of interrelated
changing experiences. We might, to adopt some traditional labels, speak of
the self as the owner of experiences, and the self as the bundle of experi-
ences, respectively. By contrast, the self currently under consideration—and
let us call it the experiential core self—is not a separately existing entity, but
neither is it simply reducible to a specific experience or (sub-)set of experi-
ences. If I compare two experiences, say the perception of a green apple and
the recollection of a yellow lemon, I can focus on the difference between
the two, namely the respective object and mode of presentation, but I can
also attend to that which remains the same, namely the first-personal
self-givenness of both experiences. To put it differently, we can distinguish
60 DAN ZAHAVI

a multitude of changing experiences from a ubiquitous dimension of first-

personal self-givenness, and the proposal is that we identify the latter with
the experiential core self. So on this view, the self is defined as the very
subjectivity of experience, and is not taken to be something that exists
independently of, or in separation from, the experiential flow.
When talking of first-personal self-givenness, one shouldn’t think of self-
reference by means of the first-person pronoun; in fact, one shouldn’t think
of a linguistically conditioned self-reference at all. Nor should one have an
explicit or thematic kind of self-knowledge in mind, one where one is
aware of oneself as a distinct individual, different from other individuals.
No, first-personal self-givenness is meant to pinpoint the fact that (intransi-
tively) conscious mental states are given in a distinct manner, with a distinct
subjective presence, to the subject whose mental states they are, a way that
in principle is unavailable to others. When saying ‘distinct’, the claim is not
that the subject of the experience is explicitly aware of their distinct
character: the point is not that the subject is necessarily attending to the
distinctness in any way. But the first-personal self-givenness is distinctive
even before, say, a child becomes explicitly aware of it, just as it is unavail-
able to others even prior to a child recognizing this.
Now, there are obviously various ways one might both elaborate on, as well
as challenge this account. Does it fall victim to what Block has called the
refrigerator illusion? Is our ordinary waking life characterized by an absorbed
mindless coping, rather than by pre-reflective self-awareness? Is first-personal
self-givenness and mineness a post hoc fabrication, something imputed to
experience by subsequent mentalizing and theorizing? I don’t have time to
respond to these worries on this occasion (but see Zahavi 1999, 2005, 2009).
Rather, I want to press ahead and directly engage with some of the criticisms
that have been raised by defenders of a no-self doctrine. I will, more specifi-
cally, look at various objections recently made by Albahari and Dreyfus.

3. The Illusory Self

In her book Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self, Albahari’s
basic aim is to argue that the self is an illusion. What notion of self is she
out to deny? She initially provides the following definition: The self should
be understood as a unified, happiness-seeking, unbrokenly persisting,
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 61

ontologically distinct conscious subject who is the owner of experiences,

the thinker of thoughts, and the agent of actions. What is interesting about
Albahari’s proposal is that, whereas many advocates of a no-self doctrine
have denied that consciousness is characterized by unity, unbrokenness, and
invariability, and taken the denial of these features to amount to a denial of
the reality of the self, Albahari considers all three to be real features of
consciousness, but she nevertheless considers the self to be illusory (Albahari
2006: 3).
To get clearer on why she thinks this is the case let us look more closely at a
distinction she introduces among different forms of ownership, namely
possessive ownership, perspectival ownership, and personal ownership. We can
ignore possessive ownership, which in this context is of less interest, since
it merely denotes the fact that certain objects (a car, a pair of trousers, etc.)
can be regarded as mine by right of social convention. But what is the
difference between personal ownership and perspectival ownership? Personal
ownership is a question of identifying oneself as the personal owner of
an experience, thought, action: it is a question of appropriating certain
experiences, actions, thoughts, etc. as one’s own, that is, a question of either
thinking of them as being mine or apprehending them as being part of me (and
this is something that can occur either pre-reflectively or reflectively). By
contrast, for a subject to own something in a perspectival sense is simply for
the experience, thought, or action in question to present itself in a distinctive
manner to the subject whose experience, thought or action it is. So the reason
I can be said to perspectivally own my thoughts or perceptions—if one will
excuse this slightly awkward way of talking—is because they appear to me in a
manner that is different from how they can appear to anybody else. When it
comes to objects external to the subject, what will be perspectivally owned
isn’t the object, but the specific manner through which the object appears to
the subject (Albahari 2006: 53).
Albahari argues that there is a close link between having a sense of
personal ownership and having a sense of self. When the subject identifies
certain items as being itself or being part of itself, it will harbor a sense of
personal ownership towards the items in question. But this very process
of identification generates the sense of a self-other distinction. It constitutes
a felt boundary between what belongs to self and what doesn’t. Thereby
the self is cast as a unified and ontologically distinct entity—one that stands
apart from other things (Albahari 2006: 73, 90). In this way, the subject
62 DAN ZAHAVI

understood as a mere point of view is turned into a substantial personalized

entity (Albahari 2006: 94). To put it differently, for Albahari, there is
more to being a self than being a point of view, than having perspectival
ownership.
One way to bring out the difference between perspectival and personal
ownership is to point to possible dissociations between the two. Pathology
seems to provide some examples. In cases of depersonalization, we can
come across thoughts, feelings, etc. which are perspectivally owned, that
is, which continue to present themselves in a unique manner to the subject,
without however being felt as the subject’s own (Albahari 2006: 55). Thus
on Albahari’s reading, the process of identification fails in depersonalization,
and as a consequence, no sense of personal ownership regarding the experi-
ence in question will be generated (Albahari 2006: 61).
Let us now consider Albahari’s self-skepticism. What does it mean for the
self to lack reality? What does it mean for the self to be illusory? On
Albahari’s account, an illusion involves a conflict between appearance and
reality. X is illusory if x does not have any appearance-independent reality,
but nevertheless purports to have such reality, that is, we are dealing with an
illusion if x purports through its appearance to exist in a particular manner
without really doing so (Albahari 2006: 122). One obvious problem, how-
ever, with such a definition is whether it at all makes sense to apply it to the
self. Does the self really purport to exist outside of its own appearance, or is
the reality of the self rather subjective or experiential? This consideration
leads Albahari to redefine the notion of illusion slightly. If the self purports
to be what she calls unconstructed, that is, independent from the experi-
ences and objects it is the subject of, and if it should turn out that it in reality
depends, even if only partially, on perspectivally ownable objects (including
various experiential episodes), then the self must be regarded as being
illusory (Albahari 2006: 130).
Albahari also emphasizes the need for a distinction between self and sense
of self. To have a sense of x, doesn’t necessarily entail that x exists. Indeed,
whereas Albahari takes the sense of self to exist and be real, she considers the
self itself to be illusory (Albahari 2006: 17). Contrary to expectations, our
sense of self is not underpinned by an actually existing ontologically inde-
pendent self-entity. Rather, all that really exists is the manifold of thoughts,
emotions, perceptions, etc. as well as a pure locus of apprehension, which
Albahari terms witness-consciousness. It is the experiential flow in conjunction
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 63

with this locus of apprehension that generates the sense of self. But if this is
so, the self lacks an essential property of selfhood, namely ontological
independence (Albahari 2006: 72). In short, the illusory status of the self is
due to the fact that the self does not have the ontological status it purports to
have. Thoughts appear to be owned and initiated by an independently
existing unified self, but rather than preceding the experiences, rather
than thinking the thoughts, it is in reality the other way around. It is not
the self that unifies our thoughts and experiences, they do so themselves
with some help from the accompanying witness-consciousness (Albahari
2006: 130–132). To repeat, although it might seem to the subject as if there is
a pre-existing self which identifies with various intentional states, the reality
of the matter is that the self is created and constructed through these
repeated acts of identification (Albahari 2006: 58).
As I mentioned at the beginning, an interesting aspect of Albahari’s
proposal is that she considers many of the features traditionally ascribed to
the self to be real, it is just that they—in her view—become distorted and
illusory if taken to be features of the self (Albahari 2006: 74). For instance,
Albahari takes our conscious life to be characterized by an intrinsic, but
elusive, sense of subjective presence, one that is common to all modalities of
awareness, that is, one that is common to seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling,
introspecting, etc. (Albahari 2006: 112, 144, 156). What does this subjective
presence amount to? It includes the experience of being the perspectival
owner of various experiences. It also includes diachronic and synchronic
unity. Although we experience various objects, and although the objects we
experience might change from one moment to the next, there still appears
to be an unbroken consciousness that observes the change without itself
changing (Albahari 2006: 155). Indeed, while from a first-person perspective
it certainly makes sense to say that I have various experiences, we automati-
cally feel them to belong to one and the same consciousness. For Albahari,
all these features are properly ascribed to the witness-consciousness, and she
is adamant that we have to distinguish witness-consciousness from self.
Whereas the latter on her definition involves felt boundaries between self
and non-self, the former doesn’t.
Let me recapitulate. For Albahari, one can be aware without being
presented to oneself as an ontologically unique subject with personalized
boundaries that distinguishes a me from the rest of the world. One can be
aware without being aware of oneself as a personal owner, a thinker of
64 DAN ZAHAVI

thoughts, an agent of actions. Examples that come to mind are cases of

pathology. Albahari asks us to consider both the real life case of epileptic
automatism and the hypothetical case of global depersonalization. In both
cases, the person or patient would be awake and responsive to the environ-
ment, so there would be awareness present. But there would be no sense of
a bounded individual self; there would be a complete lack of personal
ownership; there would be no sense of me or mine (Albahari 2006: 171,
177). Albahari suggests that such a state of mind might not only be encoun-
tered in pathologies, but also in newborn infants, and in primitive organ-
isms. And as she then points out in the conclusion of her book, and this is of
course where her Buddhist orientation becomes evident, if we were to
attain enlightenment, we would move from consciousness-plus-self-illusion
to consciousness-sans-self-illusion, and the latter condition, although strictly
speaking not identical with global depersonalization—after all, it correlates
with highly advanced cognitive capacities—might nevertheless be com-
pared to it (Albahari 2006: 161, 207).

4. Self vs No-Self
The debate between advocates of self and no-self accounts is complicated by
the fact that there is rather little consensus about what precisely a self
amounts to, just as there is little agreement on what a no-self doctrine
entails. Albahari’s account in Analytical Buddhism constitutes a neat example
of this. As we have just seen, Albahari basically denies the reality of the self
and argues that it is illusory. To that extent, she should obviously count as a
defender of a no-self account. At the same time, however, Albahari ascribes
a number of features to what she calls witness-consciousness—features
including invariance, unconstructedness, and ontological independence,
features that many defenders of a traditional notion of self would consider
essential and defining features of self. In fact, whereas I would suggest that
we replace the traditional notion of a ‘subject of experience’ with the notion
of a ‘subjectivity of experience’—the first phrasing might suggest that the
self is something that exists apart from, or above, the experience and, for
that reason, something that might be encountered in separation from the
experience, or even something the experience may occasionally lack, the
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 65

second phrasing, however, excludes these types of misunderstanding—

Albahari wants to retain the former notion, since she considers the subject
ontologically distinct from the experiences. Some might consequently claim
that Albahari, despite her official allegiance to the no-self doctrine, is
actually committed to a more robust notion of self than many contemporary
defenders of the self, myself included.2 But of course, one might also make
the reverse move. I defend the reality of self, but according to Albahari, the
notion of self that I operate with is so thin, and ultimately so revisionary in
nature, that she in a recent article has claimed that my position ends up
being very similar to that of the no-self theorists I am criticizing (Albahari
2009: 80). When I first encountered this criticism, I was somewhat puzzled,
but I have subsequently come to realize that there is an obvious sense in
which Albahari is right. It all comes down to what precisely a no-self
doctrine amounts to. As Ganeri has recently pointed out, there is no simple
answer to the question of whether the aim of the no-self doctrine—insofar
as one can at all speak of it in the singular—is to identify and reject a
mistaken understanding of self—one that perpetuates suffering—or whether
the point is rather to reject and dispel all notions of self (Ganeri 2007:
185–186).3
In his paper in this volume, Dreyfus has explicitly defended the view that,
although the no-self view does entail a denial of a self-entity, it shouldn’t be
read as entailing a denial of subjectivity. There is on his view no enduring
experiencing subject, no inner controller or homunculus. Rather what we
find is an ever-changing stream of consciousness. This stream is, however,
to be conceived of as a process of self-awareness. Dreyfus consequently
argues that consciousness is characterized by pervasive reflexivity, by a basic

2 Consider that although Albahari denies unconstructedness of self, she ascribes it to witness-
consciousness. As she puts it at one point, ‘awareness must be shown to exist in the manner it purports
to exist. Awareness purports to exist as a witnessing presence that is unified, unbroken and yet elusive to
direct observation. As something whose phenomenology purports to be unborrowed from objects of
consciousness, awareness, if it exists, must exist as completely unconstructed by the content of any
perspectivally ownable objects such as thoughts, emotions or perceptions. If apparent awareness . . .
turned out to owe its existence to such object-content rather than to (unconstructed) awareness itself,
then that would render awareness constructed and illusory and hence lacking in independent reality’
(Albahari 2006: 162). This seems to commit one to viewing awareness as an ontologically independent
region. It is not clear to me why one would want to uphold such a view of consciousness in the first
place.
3 Needless to say there is also a rather significant difference between claiming that experience is
fundamentally selfless and claiming that a dissolution or annihilation of self is an ultimate state we can
(and should) seek to attain.
66 DAN ZAHAVI

self-presencing that is part and parcel of our experiential life, and not to be
conceived of as an additional or separate act of cognition. In opposition to
some of the bundle theorists, Dreyfus consequently denies that experiences
are fundamentally impersonal, as if the attribution of first-personal self-
givenness to our experiential life is a post hoc fabrication. Rather, our
experiences are from the very start intrinsically self-specified (Dreyfus, this
volume, p. ??). But although Dreyfus, by implication, is prepared to accept
the reality of subjectivity, he insists that distortion arises the moment we
interpret this subjectivity as a bounded, unified self (Dreyfus, this volume,
p. ??). In short, the undeniable presence of a transient flow of self-aware
experiences doesn’t entail the existence of an enduring self-entity, rather the
latter is on Dreyfus’ view an illusory reification (Dreyfus, this volume, p.??).
More specifically, whereas Dreyfus wants to retain perspectival ownership
and synchronic unity—and claims that both features are guaranteed by
subjectivity—he argues that there is no diachronically unified self. There
is no enduring entity that stays the same from childhood to adulthood.
Let me divide my critical rejoinder into three parts.
1. First of all, I reject the univocal definition of self provided by Dreyfus
and Albahari. Both are very confident in spelling out what a self is, and after
having defined it, they then proceed to deny its existence. In my view,
however, the definition they provide is overly simplistic. There is no doubt
that some people have defended the notion of self that Albahari and Dreyfus
operate with, but I would dispute the claim that their notion is the default
notion, that is, that it is either a particularly classical notion of self or that it is a
particularly commonsensical notion, that is, one that is part of our folk
psychology. Consider again the claim that the self—if it exists—is some kind
of ontologically independent invariant principle of identity that stands apart
from, and above, the stream of changing experiences; something that
remains unchanging from birth to death; something that remains entirely
unaffected by language acquisition, social relationships, major life events,
personal commitments, projects, and values, something that cannot develop
or flourish nor be disturbed or shattered. Frankly, I don’t see such a notion
as being very much in line with our pre-philosophical, everyday under-
standing of who we are. As for the claim that the definition captures the
(rather than a) traditional philosophical understanding of self, this is also
something I would dispute. Just consider, to take some (not entirely)
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 67

randomly chosen examples: the accounts we find in Aristotle or Montaigne

(for informative historical overviews, cf. Sorabji 2006, Seigel 2005). In any
case, when comparing the definition of self provided by Albahari and
Dreyfus to the definitions found in contemporary discussions of self, it
will immediately be evident that the latter discussions are far more complex,
and far more equivocal, and that there are far more notions of self at play,
including notions of ecological, experiential, dialogical, narrative, relational,
embodied, and socially constructed selves. This complexity is ignored by
Albahari and Dreyfus, and they thereby fail to realize that many of the
contemporary notions of self—including those employed by most empirical
researchers currently interested in the development, structure, function, and
pathology of self—are quite different from the concept they criticize. To
mention just one discipline that can exemplify this, consider developmental
psychology and the work of developmental psychologists such as Stern
(1985), Neisser (1988), Rochat (2001), Hobson (2002), or Reddy (2008).
Thus, rather than saying that the self does not exist, I think self-skeptics
should settle for a far more modest claim. They should qualify their state-
ment and instead deny the existence of a special kind of self.
2. Albahari and Dreyfus both insist on distinguishing subjectivity and
selfhood. Although Dreyfus doesn’t say so explicitly, he would presumably
agree with Albahari when she claims that my own notion of self is too thin
and minimal, too deflationary and revisionary. In reply, let me right away
concede that my thin notion of self is unable to accommodate or capture all
ordinary senses of the term ‘self ’. In fact, it has some clear limitations, which
I will return to in a moment. But although it certainly doesn’t provide an
exhaustive understanding of what it means to be a self, I think the very fact
that we employ notions like first-person perspective, for-me-ness and mineness
in order to describe our experiential life, the fact that the latter is character-
ized by a basic and pervasive immanent reflexivity, by self-specificity and
pre-reflective self-awareness, is sufficient to warrant the use of the term
‘self ’. When arguing that an account of our experiential life that fails to
include a reference to self is misleading and inadequate, I am to a large
extent motivated by my opposition to the impersonality thesis, the no-
ownership view, the strong anonymity claim (or whatever we want to call
the position in question). I wish to insist on the basic (and quite formal)
individuation of experiential life as well as on the irreducible difference
68 DAN ZAHAVI

between one stream of consciousness and another stream of consciousness.

Indeed, rather than obstructing or impeding a satisfactory account of inter-
subjectivity, an emphasis on the inherent and essential individuation of
experiential life is a prerequisite for getting the relation and difference
between self and other right. I consequently fail to see how a radical denial
of the reality of self will ever be able to respect the otherness of the other. To
put it differently, I don’t think the question of whether there is one or two
streams is a matter of convention. The fact that we frequently share the same
opinions, thoughts, beliefs, and values doesn’t change this. As Wilde put it,
‘Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions,
their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation’ (Wilde 1969: 97). But
again, this observation targets a different issue.
Of course, some might maintain that first-personal givenness is just too
formal to act as individuating principle. After all, all experiences, not only
mine but everybody’s, are characterized by first-personal givenness, so how
could such givenness serve to pinpoint and define me? This objection is
wrongheaded, however, in that it precisely fails to take the first-person
perspective seriously. Consider two clones that are qualitatively identical
when it comes to physical and mental characteristics. From a third-person
perspective, it would indeed be hard to distinguish the two (except in terms
of spatial location), and the presence of first-personal givenness would be
useless as a criterion of individuation, since both of their experiential streams
would possess it. Indeed, from a third-person perspective there would be no
significant difference at all between the first-person givenness characterizing
the experiential stream of clone A, and the first-person givenness character-
izing the experiential stream of clone B. But compare, then, what happens if
we instead adopt the first-person perspective. Let us assume that I am one of
the clones. Although my mental and physical characteristics are qualitatively
identical to those of my ‘twin’, there will still remain a critical and all-
decisive difference between me and him, a difference that would prevent
any confusion between the two of us. What might that difference consist in?
It obviously has to do with the fact that only my experiences are given in a
first-personal mode of presentation to me, whereas the qualitatively identi-
cal experiences of my clone are not given first-personally to me at all, and
are therefore not part of my experiential life. As mentioned earlier, it is the
particular first-personal how rather than some specific content which most
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 69

fundamentally distinguishes my experiences from the experiences had by

others. This is why I wish to insist that the subjectivity of experience, its
first-personal character, although quite formal, does individuate experiential
life. This is why it can function as placeholder for features traditionally
associated with the self.
Importantly, this emphasis on the first-personal character of experience
does not entail an endorsement of the view that the self is unconstructed or
unconditioned, in the sense of being ontologically independent of the
experiences or the surrounding world, nor does it entail the view that the
self is bounded in the sense of involving a strict division between self and
world.4 As a case in point, consider and compare Neisser’s and Heidegger’s
notions of self. According to Neisser’s notion of ecological self, all percep-
tion involves a kind of self-sensitivity: all perception involves a co-percep-
tion of self and of environment (Neisser 1988). As for Heidegger, he
explicitly argues that we should look at our intentional experiences if we
wish to study the self. On his account, our experiential life is world-related,
and there is a presence of self when we are engaged with the world, that is,
self-experience is the self-experience of a world-immersed self (Heidegger
1993: 34, 250). But to deny that there is a strict boundary between self and
world, to concede that self and world cannot be understood independently
of each other and that the boundary between the two might be plastic and
shifting, is not to question the reality of the difference between the two. To
take an everyday example, consider the ever-shifting boundary between the
sea and the beach. That the boundary keeps shifting is no reason to deny the
difference between the two. To put it differently, contrary to the views of
Albahari and Dreyfus, I would dispute that unconstructedness and bound-
edness are essential features of self, features that any viable notion of self
must include. This is also why I reject the attempt to distinguish subjectivity
and selfhood. As I see it, to reject the existence of self while endorsing
the reality of subjectivity is to miss out on what subjectivity really amounts

4 Though, as already pointed out, I am committed to the view that there is indeed a firm boundary
between self and other—as long as our concern is limited to the experiential notion of self. To quote
James, ‘Absolute insulation, irreducible pluralism, is the law. It seems as if the elementary psychic fact
were not thought or this thought or that thought, but my thought, every thought being owned. Neither
contemporaneity, nor proximity in space, nor similarity of quality and content are able to fuse thoughts
together which are sundered by this barrier of belonging to different personal minds. The breaches
between such thoughts are the most absolute breaches in nature’ (James 1890: 226).
70 DAN ZAHAVI

to—it is to pay lip service to the idea that we should take the first-person
perspective serious.
3. My third comment concerns the metaphysical framework we are
operating within. In recent years, quite a number of people have stressed
the existence of convergent ideas in Western phenomenology and Bud-
dhism. It has been claimed that both traditions represent serious efforts to
nurture a disciplined first-person approach to consciousness (cf. Varela and
Shear 1999), and some have even started to speak of Buddhist phenome-
nology (cf. Lusthaus 2002). I am not denying the truth of this, but when
appraising Buddhist views of the nature and status of self, one should not
overlook the fact that they are also driven and motivated by strong meta-
physical and soteriological concerns, and that this occasionally leads to
claims and conclusions that are quite far removed from phenomenology.
As an example, consider the Abhidharmic view that billions of distinct
mind-moments occur in the span of a blink of the eye (cf. Bodhi 1993: 156).
Dennett (1992) and Metzinger (2003) both deny the reality of the self,
and part of their reason for doing this, part of the reason why they think the
self is fictitious, is that a truly fundamental account of reality on their view
can dispense with self. Some Buddhist metaphysicians would share this view
(cf. Siderits’ and MacKenzie’s contributions to this volume). Although I
have sympathy with the idea that we shouldn’t multiply entities beyond
necessity, I think the view in question is far too austere. It is hard to see why
one shouldn’t declare social reality fictitious on the same account. If there is
no self, there can hardly be a you or a we either. In fact, it is hard to see why
we shouldn’t also declare the world we live in and know and care about
(including everyday objects and events like chairs, playing cards, operas, or
marriage ceremonies) illusory. Again, such a view is quite different from the
phenomenological attempt to rehabilitate our life-world.
In the preceding, I have discussed a thin experiential notion of self, and
have tried to present and defend this view. Ultimately, however, I favor
what might be called a multidimensional account of self. I think the self is so
multifaceted a phenomenon that various complementary accounts must be
integrated if we are to do justice to its complexity. I consequently don’t
think that the thin notion I have defended above is sufficient. It must be
supplemented by thicker notions that capture and do justice to other
important aspects of self. More specifically, I think our account of human
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 71

reality is inadequate if we don’t also consider the self that forms plans, makes
promises, and accepts responsibilities, the self that is defined and shaped by
its values, ideals, goals, convictions, and decisions. Consider as a case in
point the issue of emotional investment: consider that we respond emo-
tionally to that which matters to us, to that which we care about, to that
towards which we are not indifferent. In that sense, one might argue that
emotions involve appraisals of what has importance, significance, value, and
relevance to oneself. Consider the extent to which emotions like shame,
guilt, pride, hope, and repentance help constitute our sense of self. Consider
in this context also the role of boundaries and limits. Your limits express the
norms and rules you abide by; they express what you can accept and what
you cannot accept. They constitute your integrity. To ask others to respect
your boundaries is to ask them to take you seriously as a person. A violation
of, or infringement upon, these boundaries is felt as invasive, and in some
cases as humiliating. To put it differently, when it comes to these facets of
self, I think boundaries, values, and emotions are extremely important, but I
don’t think an emphasis on boundaries has much to do with the endorse-
ment of an enduring soul-substance that remains the same from birth to
death. And I don’t see why opposition to the latter should necessitate a
rejection of the former as well. We are dealing with a culturally, socially,
and linguistically embedded self that is under constant construction. But is
this fact a reason for declaring the self in question illusory? I don’t see why,
unless, that is, one’s prior metaphysical commitments dictate it.

5. Diachronic Unity and the Self

Let me end with a question that I quite on purpose have saved for last. It
concerns the relation between self and diachronic unity. Is persistence and
temporal endurance a defining feature of self ?
We all have a direct experience of change and persistence. We can hear
an enduring tone or a melody, just as we can see the flight of a bird. This
phenomenological finding must be accounted for, and as a distinguished
line of thinkers—including James, Bergson, Husserl, and more recently,
Dainton—have argued, a mere succession of synchronically unified but
isolated momentary points of experience cannot explain and account for
our experience of duration. To actually perceive an object as enduring over
72 DAN ZAHAVI

time, the successive phases of consciousness must somehow be united

experientially, and the decisive challenge is to account for this temporal
binding without giving rise to an infinite regress, that is, without having to
posit yet another temporally extended consciousness whose task is to unify
the first-order consciousness, and so forth ad infinitum. To account for the
diachronic unity of consciousness, there is, however, no need for an appeal
to some undivided, invariable, unchanging, trans-temporal entity. In order
to understand the unity in question, we do not need to search for anything
above, beyond, or external to the stream itself. Rather, following Husserl, I
would propose that the unity of the stream of consciousness is constituted
by inner time-consciousness, by the interplay between what Husserl calls
primal impression, retention, and protention. Rather than being pre-given,
it is a unity that is established or woven. This is not the right place to delve
into the intricacies of Husserl’s complex account (see, however, Zahavi
2003, 2004, 2007a), but on his account, even the analysis of something as
synchronic as the conscious givenness of a present experience would have to
include a consideration of temporality. For the very same reason, I would
reject Dreyfus’s attempt to make a sharp distinction between synchronic
unity which he accepts, and diachronic unity which he rejects. You cannot
have synchronic unity without some amount of diachronic unity (if ever so
short-lived). To claim otherwise is to miss the fundamental temporal
character of consciousness. Now, perhaps it could be objected that our
experience of diachronic unity is after all ‘merely’ phenomenological and
consequently devoid of any metaphysical impact. But to think that one can
counter the phenomenological experience of unity over time with the claim
that this unity is illusory and that it doesn’t reveal anything about the true
metaphysical nature of consciousness is to make use of the appearance-
reality distinction outside its proper domain of application. This is especially
so, given that the reality in question, rather than being defined in terms of
some spurious mind-independence, should be understood in terms of
experiential reality. For comparison, consider the case of pain. Who
would deny that pain experience is sufficient for the reality of pain? To
put it differently, if one wants to dispute the reality of the diachronic unity
of consciousness, one should do so by means of more convincing phenom-
enological descriptions. To argue that the diachronic unity of consciousness
is illusory because it doesn’t match any unity on the subpersonal level is to
misunderstand the task at hand.
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 73

Very well, the skeptic might retort, but accepting that our experiential
life has a certain temporal density and extension is hardly the same as
accepting the existence of a persisting self from birth to death. Quite
right, I would reply, but even the former might be sufficient if you want
to defend the existence of transient short-term selves, as Galen Strawson has
consistently done (Strawson 2000), and I don’t think Dreyfus has provided
arguments against that specific notion of self.5 But more importantly,
although Dreyfus denies that in his own case there is an entity that has
endured from his childhood in Switzerland to his being a grown-up adult in
the US, he does concede that we, in the case of episodic memory, do not
have two absolutely different persons, the person remembering and the
person remembered. In fact, on his account, we do have to keep first-
personal self-givenness in mind, and although the remembering person is in
some sense different from the one being remembered, the difference is
certainly not as great as the one that separates me from other people
(Dreyfus, this volume, p.??). My present act of remembering and the past
act that is being remembered both share similar first-personal self-givenness.
They consequently have something in common that distinguishes them
from the experiences of others. As Dreyfus continues, when I remember a
past experience, I don’t just recall its content, I also remember it as being
given to me. Now on his account, there is something distorting about this,
insofar as the past experience is remembered as mine (thereby suggesting the
existence of an enduring self ), but as he continues, this isn’t a complete
distortion either (Dreyfus, this volume, p.??).
On my account, there is no experiential self, no self as defined from the
first-person perspective, when we are non-conscious.6 But this does not

5 In his defense of a no-self account, Krueger claims that a Who is neither necessary nor sufficient for
a How. In arguing for this view, Krueger repeatedly concedes that it might be legitimate to speak of
minimal selves (rather than of a minimal self ) (Krueger, this volume, p. ??). However, I find it quite hard
to understand how the existence of a plurality of selves is compatible with, or might even count in favor
of, a no-self theory, unless, of course, one stacks the deck by presupposing a quite particular definition
of self.
6 This is also why I don’t think the notion of experiential self will allow us to solve all relevant
questions regarding personal identity and persistence over time. Consider, for instance, the case of a man
who early in life makes a decision that proves formative for his subsequent life and career. The episode in
question is, however, subsequently forgotten by the person. He no longer enjoys first-person access to it.
If we restrict ourselves to what can be accounted for by means of the experiential core self, we cannot
speak of the decision as being his, as being one he made. Or take the case where we might wish to ascribe
responsibility for past actions to an individual who no longer remembers them. By doing that we
postulate an identity between the past offender and the present subject, but the identity in question is
74 DAN ZAHAVI

necessarily imply that the diachronic unity of self is threatened by alleged

interruptions of the stream of consciousness (such as dreamless sleep, coma,
etc.), since the identity of the self is defined in terms of givenness rather than
in terms of temporal continuity. To put it differently, experiences that I live
through from a first-person perspective are by definition mine, regardless of
their content and temporal location. Thus, I don’t think there is any mistake
or distortion involved in remembering the past experiences as mine. Obvi-
ously this is not to say that episodic memory is infallible—I might have false
beliefs about myself—I am only claiming that it is not subject to the error of
misidentification (cf. Campbell 1994: 98–99). But does that mean that I take
the first-personal self-givenness of the experiences as evidence for the
persistence of an underlying enduring self ? No, I don’t, since the self I
have been discussing in this paper is the experiential self, the self as defined
from the first-person perspective—neither more nor less. I think this self
is real and that it possesses real diachronicity, but as already mentioned
I don’t think its reality—its phenomenological reality—depends on its
ability to mirror or match or represent some non-experiential enduring
ego-substance. Having said this, let me just add that, although I don’t think
there is distortion involved in remembering a past experience as mine, there
is admittedly and importantly more than just pure and simple identity.
Episodic memory does involve some kind of doubling or fission; it does
involve some degree of self-division, self-absence, and self-alienation.
Episodic memory constitutes a kind of self-experience that involves identity
as well as difference. At least this is pretty much phenomenological ortho-
doxy. As Husserl already insisted, recollection entails a self-displacement,
and he went on to argue that there is a structural similarity between
recollection and empathy (Husserl 1954: 189, 1966: 309, 1973a: 318,
1973b: 416). A related idea is also to be found in Merleau-Ponty, who
wrote that our temporal existence is both a condition for, and an obstacle to,

again not one that can be accounted for in terms of the experiential core self. But given my commitment
to a multidimensional account of self, I would precisely urge us to adopt a multilayered account of self.
We are more than experiential core selves, we are, for instance, also narratively configured and socially
constructed persons (cf. Zahavi 2007b). We shouldn’t forget that our life-stories are multi-authored.
Who we are is not something we exclusively determine ourselves. It is also a question of how we are seen
by others. Even if there is no experiential self (no self as defined from the first-person perspective) when
we are non-conscious, there are various other aspects of self that remain, and which make it perfectly
legitimate to say that we are non-conscious, that is, that we can persist even when non-conscious. For a
recent, very elaborate, and rather metaphysical discussion of these questions, cf. Dainton (2008).
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 75

our self-comprehension. Temporality contains an internal fracture that

permits us to return to our past experiences in order to investigate them
reflectively, yet this very fracture also prevents us from fully coinciding with
ourselves (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 402).
But again, to some this answer might be dissatisfactory and evade the real
issue: Is there or is there not an identical self from birth through childhood,
adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Ultimately, I think this question is
overly simplistic, since it presupposes that the self is one thing, and that there
is a simple yes or no answer to the question. I disagree, and think the answer
will depend on what notion of self we are talking about. But let me forego
this complication and stick to the problem of whether or not the experien-
tial self, the self as defined in terms of subjectivity, remains invariant across
large time stretches. To put it differently, when remembering—from the
first-person perspective – an episode that took place fifteen years ago, when
remembering that past experience as mine, are we then confronted with a
case where the experiential self has remained the same? Is the experiential
self that originally lived through the experience 15 years ago, and the
experiential self that today recalls the past experience, one and the same
numerically identical self, or are we merely dealing with a relationship
between two qualitatively similar selves, where the current self might
stand, say, in a unique causal relationship to the former self ?
I must confess my initial hesitancy when faced with these kinds of
metaphysical questions: a hesitancy that probably stems from the fact that
this simply isn’t the way the self has traditionally been discussed in phenom-
enology. But here is my, perhaps surprising, reply. I find the idea that a
stream of consciousness might start off as mine and end up being somebody
else’s radically counter-intuitive (cf. Dainton 2008, 18). Moreover, the
moment one insists that the stream of consciousness is made up of a plurality
of ontologically distinct (but qualitatively similar) short-term selves, one is
inevitably confronted with the question regarding their relationship. I don’t
see any real alternative to the following proposal: their relationship is akin to
the relationship between my self and the self of somebody else. And I find
this proposal absurd.
But even if similarity doesn’t amount to identity, surely—some might
object—we need to distinguish an account claiming that the stream of
consciousness involves some form of experiential continuity from an account
claiming that it somehow involves diachronic identity. My response will be
76 DAN ZAHAVI

to question the relevance and significance of that distinction in the present

context. To put it differently, in my view the continuity provided by the
stream of consciousness, the unity provided by shared first-personal self-
givenness, is sufficient for the kind of experiential self-identity that I am
eager to preserve. If you find this insufficient, I think you are looking for the
wrong kind of identity.7

References
Albahari, M. (2006), Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan).
——(2009), ‘Witness-Consciousness: Its Definition, Appearance and Reality’,
Journal of Consciousness Studies 16/1: 62–84.
Bodhi, Bhikkhu, editor (1993), A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidharma (Seattle,
WA: Buddhist Publication Society).
Campbell, J. (1994), Past, Space, and Self (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Dainton, B. (2008), The Phenomenal Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Dennett, Daniel Clement. 1992. ‘The Self as the Center of Narrative Gravity’,
in Frank S. Kessel, Pamela M. Cole, and Dale L. Johnson (eds.), Self and
Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum).
Ganeri, J. (2007), The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of Self and Practices of Truth
in Indian Ethics and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Heidegger, M. (1993), Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (1919/1920). Gesamtaus-
gabe Band 58 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann).
Henry, M. (1963), L’essence de la manifestation (Paris: PUF).
——(1965), Philosophie et phénoménologie du corps (Paris: PUF).
Hobson, R. P. (2002), The Cradle of Thought (London: Macmillan).

7 One might here mention Ricoeur’s careful distinction between two concepts of identity: Identity
as sameness ( mêmeté) and identity as selfhood ( ipséité) (Ricoeur 1990). The first concept of identity, the
identity of the same (Latin: idem), conceives of the identical as that which can be re-identified again and
again, as that which resists change. The identity in question is that of an unchangeable substance, or
substrate, that remains the same over time. By contrast, the second concept of identity, the identity of the
self (Latin: ipse), has on Ricoeur’s account very little to do with the persistence of some unchanging
personality core. Whereas questions regarding the first concept of identity take the form of What
questions, questions regarding the second concept take the form of Who questions, and must be
approached from the first-person perspective.
 THE EXPERIENTIAL SELF: OBJECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS 77

Husserl, E. (1954), Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie: Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Husserliana 6
(Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff ).
——(1966), Analysen zur passiven Synthesis: Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanu-
skripten 1918–1926, Husserliana 11 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff ).
——(1973a), Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität: Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster
Teil: 1905–1920, Husserliana 13 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff ).
——(1973b), Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität: Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter
Teil: 1929–1935, Husserliana 15 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff ).
James, W. (1890), The Principles of Psychology I (London: Macmillan and Co.).
Lusthaus, D. (2002), Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara
Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih Lun (London: Routledge).
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002), Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge).
Metzinger, T. (2003), Being No One (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Neisser, U. (1988), ‘Five Kinds of Self-knowledge’, Philosophical Psychology
1/1: 35–59.
Reddy, V. (2008), How Infants Know Minds (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University
Press).
Ricoeur, P. (1990), Soi-même comme un autre (Paris: Seuil).
Rochat, P. (2001), The Infant’s World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Sartre, J. (1967), ‘Consciousness of Self and Knowledge of Self ’, in N. Lawrence
and D. O’Connor (eds.), Readings in Existential Phenomenology (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall).
——(2003), Being and Nothingness (London: Routledge).
Seigel, J. (2005), The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe Since
the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Sorabji, R. (2006), Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life and Death
(Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Stern, D. N. (1985), The Interpersonal World of the Infant (New York: Basic Books).
Strawson, G. (2000), ‘The phenomenology and ontology of the self ’, in D. Zahavi
(ed.), Exploring the Self (Amsterdam: John Benjamins).
Varela, F. and Shear, J. (1999), The View from Within: First-Person Approaches to the
Study of Consciousness (Thorverton: Imprint academic).
Wilde, O. (1969), De Profundis (London: Dawsons).
Zahavi, D. (1999), Self-Awareness and Alterity: A Phenomenological Investigation
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press).
——(2003) ‘Inner Time-Consciousness and Pre-reflective Self-Awareness’, in D.
Welton (ed.), The New Husserl: A Critical Reader (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press).
78 DAN ZAHAVI

Zahavi, D. (2004), ‘Time and Consciousness in the Bernau Manuscripts’, Husserl

Studies 20/2: 99–118.
——(2005), Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective (Cam-
bridge, MA: The MIT Press).
——(2007a), ‘Perception of Duration Presupposes Duration of Perception—or
Does it? Husserl and Dainton on Time’, International Journal of Philosophical
Studies 15/3: 453–471.
——(2007b), ‘Self and Other: The Limits of Narrative Understanding’, in D. D.
Hutto (ed.), Narrative and Understanding Persons (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
——(2009), ‘Is the Self a Social Construct?’ Inquiry 52/6: 551–573.
 3
Nirvana and Ownerless
Consciousness
MIRI ALBAHARI

1. Introduction

A Buddhist friend remarked recently: ‘Perhaps one or two arahants exist

in the world’. ‘Arahant’ (or arhat) is a Buddhist term for someone who has
attained the summum bonum of Buddhist practice. Such a state is known as
‘enlightenment’ or nirvāna. While Buddhist traditions will differ in their exact
depictions of nirvana, most would agree that a sense of the self, with its
attendant feelings of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, is extinguished. With it is extinguished
the capacity to suffer mentally. There is a radical shift in motivational
structure: no longer do such persons seek gratification from any state of
affairs. Losing family or suffering illness fails to dent their equanimity. The
arahant operates from a different basis: no more identifying with the ‘I’ of
such situations than most of us would identify with burning leaves on a fire.
Yet they still act fluently in the world—with great joy and spontaneity and
compassion.
The ‘perhaps’ of my Buddhist friend was meant to indicate the extreme
rarity of such people. Buddhist tradition holds the pull of craving and
attachment, needed to sustain the illusion of self, to be so strong that it would
take lifetimes of dedicated practice to vanquish. As a philosopher, I am
interested in taking the ‘perhaps’ another way: not as an indication of rarity,
but of modality. Is it really psychologically possible for an arahant to exist,
human brains and minds being what they are? Can people really become so
free from the sense of self that they no longer identify with their bodies or
minds, and yet still act fluently and without suffering in the world? Or is such
MIRI ALBAHARI

an idea, which has inspired thousands to be ordained as monks or nuns, likely

to be steeped in religious fantasy? Serious investigation into the possibility of
nirvana has not yet entered mainstream analytic philosophy, even though its
implications for the metaphysics of mind, if it were possible, could well be
significant. Western philosophy has tended to zero in on the structure of the
ordinary person's mind, the extraordinary being confined to pathological
impairment. If nirvana was shown to be possible, then I contend that much of
value could be learnt from analyzing the mind's extraordinary capacities.
To the extent that nirvana can be described (itself a matter of contention),
it is so multifaceted that no investigation could do justice to all aspects within
a single work. This is compounded by the fact that Buddhist traditions diverge
on how nirvana is to be exactly understood. My own interpretation focuses
particularly on the relation between nirvana and no-self, and is based upon a
philosophical reconstruction from discourses (sutras) of the Pali Canon (which
I call ‘Pali Buddhism’ for short). We will see that this challenges an
orthodoxy considered by many to be classically ‘Buddhist’.
I mentioned that most Buddhist traditions agree that nirvana entails
insight into the truth of no-self, such that certain feelings of ‘me’ and ‘mine’
are vanquished (however these key notions are to be understood). So when
investigating the possibility of nirvana, it is worth asking of a chosen Buddhist
tradition: What is the most likely relationship between the sense of self and
the ubiquitous feeling of ownership (or ‘mineness’) had towards one's
thoughts and experiences? Could any form of consciousness survive the
possible destruction of these ownership-feelings? Could ownerless
consciousness be an underlying feature of the everyday mind? The goal of this
paper is to draw together the most salient points about consciousness,
ownership, and no-self that arose from my initial foray into Pali Buddhism,
and to further develop some of the arguments in relation to later work on the
subject.1 I hope it will transpire that even a preliminary investigation into the
psychological possibility of nirvana can be a valuable exercise in drawing
distinctions that may help to illuminate the architecture of the everyday mind.
The paper has three parts. In Part One, I outline in some detail the notion
of self that I contend is most central to Pali Buddhism: the self that is
                                                            
1
 Many of the concepts and arguments in this paper originated in my book Analytical Buddhism(2006) and
in my (2009) paper, some of which are developed here further, sometimes from a different angle. Other
arguments (such as that supporting my interpretation of no-self in Pali Buddhism) are entirely new. (A
detailed canonical defense of my interpretation of nirvana and no-self can be found in chapters 2–3 of
Albahari 2006). 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

purported to have illusory status. It is not an abstract or ethereal concept (such

as a non-physical soul), but a notion that describes the very thing that most of
us unquestioningly take ourselves to be. If this were indeed not the case, then
there would be little relevance to the possibility of losing the sense of a self in
the process of attaining nirvana.
In Part Two, I argue that the process of attaining nirvana (as construed in
Pali Buddhism) would place important constraints on the structure of the self-
illusion, setting it apart from standard Western accounts of no-self. It is fairly
uncontentious that each person seems somewhat aware of a stream of various
objects, including thoughts and perceptions, and that these objects seem
presented, in our conscious awareness, to a point of view. This point of view
appears to be unified, both synchronically and, from moment to waking
moment, diachronically. (I term this point of view a ‘perspectival owner’.) But
does the perspectival owner really exist? On most Western theories of no-self
(pioneered by Hume), this unified conscious perspective lies at the heart of the
self-illusion. All the conscious mind is really furnished with, it is claimed, are
bundles of evanescent mental phenomena: thoughts and perceptions (etc.) that
interact with mental mechanisms to create the illusion of a unified perspective
that observes them. Of crucial relevance here is that the Buddhist theory of
no-self is typically depicted by Buddhist scholars of different traditions as a
type of bundle theory. While I have argued elsewhere that a bundle theory of
no-self is not supported by specific sutras in the Pali Canon, the purposes of
this paper are chiefly philosophical. To this end I offer a new argument
against interpreting Buddhist sutras as bundle-theory reductionism—whether
the reductionism is non-reflexive (discussed in this volume by Mark Siderits)
or reflexive (discussed in this volume by Georges Dreyfus, Evan Thompson,
Matthew MacKenzie, and Joel Krueger). I argue that if we take seriously the
soteriological Buddhist injunction that the truth of no-self in nirvana is to be
known experientially (e.g. through meditation) rather than just inferentially
(e.g. through philosophical analysis), then a bundled mind will not be the sort
of thing that can be known in the right way. The heart of the self-illusion will
instead, I contend, lie in the personalized identity that seems to place a
boundary around the (real) unified perspective, turning it into what I call a
‘personal owner’. I contend that this boundary, underpinning the sense of
‘who I am’ versus ‘what I am not’, is the true target of early Buddhist
practices that seek to eliminate the sense of a self. What remains after the
MIRI ALBAHARI

sense of self has dissolved is a unified perspectival ‘witness-consciousness’

that, insofar as it lacks the illusion of a personal self, is intrinsically ownerless.
If nirvana is possible, and my arguments are accepted, then it has
implications for how the everyday mind is structured. The personal-owner-self
will be an illusion, while the unified witness-consciousness, which comes
through in the ordinary sense of self, will be real. The mind will therefore
exemplify a ‘two-tiered’ rather than ‘bundled’ illusion of self. In Part Three, I
offer some independent reasons for supposing that the two-tiered illusion of
self is exemplified in the everyday mind.

2. The Central Notion of Self

If nirvana is the seeing-through of the self-illusion, then investigation into

its possibility must be clear on the kind of self that is supposedly seen
through. This is especially important if, as Dan Zahavi and Joel Krueger
claim, definitions of the self abound (Zahavi, this volume, p. 66, Krueger, this
volume, p. 34). It is also important that the ‘self’ in this case depicts
something central, something that most of us have a sense of being. Should it
turn out, for instance, that the ‘self’ of Buddhist sutras refers primarily to an
immortal soul, the prospect of seeing through the illusion of self would be
irrelevant to most people, who do not presuppose its existence.2 Elsewhere, I
spend some time extracting from early Buddhist sutras the relevant notion of
the self, and then arguing that this notion of the self, which closely matches
that alluded to by many Western philosophers (such as Hume, James, and
Dennett), is presupposed in our modes of thinking and living.3 For reasons of
space I will not recite the arguments here, although I will
insist, contra Zahavi, that it is very much a notion ‘in line with our pre-
philosophical, everyday understanding of who we are’ (Zahavi, this volume,
p. 66). The purpose of this section is, thus, to elucidate what I take to be the
central features of this assumed self, drawing in particular on a distinction that
I make between perspectival and personal ownership. As already hinted, the
distinction will figure centrally in my account of how the self is illusory and
what survives its destruction. In essence, then this commonly assumed self is a

                                                            
2
 This is not to deny that the Buddha did caution Brahmanical thinkers against becoming enamoured with
more theoretical elaborations of the self, involving eternal, non-physical impartite entities serving as the
vehicle of rebirth. 
3
 See Albahari (2006, chs. 2–4). 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

unified, unbrokenly persisting subject of experience with personalized

boundaries and a perspective on the world. It is a thinker, owner, and agent
that stands behind, and is somewhat in charge of, the stream of thoughts and
experiences, as opposed to being constructed by them.
First and foremost, the self (that we have a sense of being) is a subject, as
opposed to object of experience. ‘The subject’ describes that aspect of the
ordinary self which is the inner locus of the first-person perspective: the
conscious embodied viewpoint from which the world is apprehended. The
subject's modus operandi is simply to observe or witness objects through a
variety of perceptual and cognitive modalities. I hence use the term ‘witness-
consciousness’ to describe the purely observational component that is
common to all modes of conscious apprehension, perceptual or cognitive.4
While this term has sometimes been used by scholars of Advaita Vēdanta with
additional metaphysical commitment (e.g. Bina Gupta 1998), or to convey a
relation of dependence with experiential objects (e.g. Wolfgang Fasching, this
volume), my use of the term is intended to be neutral on this front. That said,
my usage is quite congruent with Fasching's, insofar as he writes that witness-
consciousness is ‘nothing but seeing itself’ (as opposed to a thing that ‘sees’)
and is experientially present to our conscious life (Fasching, this volume, p.
194). (Later I will argue, in agreement with Fasching, that witness-
consciousness is unified and to some extent unbroken, but importantly, this is
not built into my definition of the term).
I use the term ‘object’ to describe anything that can possibly be attended
to by a (witnessing) subject: thoughts, perceptions, trees, bodies, actions, or
events. Any conscious creature is uniquely positioned to observe (via witness-
consciousness) an array of such objects as pains, thoughts, or its own body,
from a perspective to which no other creature has direct access. Insofar as
various objects appear to a subject's perspective, in this direct first-personal
way, the subject can be termed aperspectival owner of the objects. While the
perspectival owner or minimal subject is built into the self, it does not, as it
stands, amount to a self: it is rather a mere locus for the first-person
perspective. The relation that perspectivally owned objects bear to the
subject qua perspectival owner matches what Dan Zahavi calls the ‘first-

                                                            
4
 For a full definition and defense of the reality of witness-consciousness, see Albahari (2009). In Albahari
(2006), I specifically relate the notion of witness-consciousness to that of the consciousness aggregate
(Pali: khandhā; Sanskrit: skandha)–one of the five conditioned elements that Pali Buddhism claims to
constitute a person. 
MIRI ALBAHARI

personal givenness’ or ‘for-me-ness’ of experience, and it is at play whenever

one speaks of ‘my headache’, ‘my body’, or ‘my actions’. I don't concur with
Zahavi, however, in holding that for-me-ness is a minimal self or subject, as
for-me-ness is a dimension of the stream of experiences rather than the subject
experiencing the stream. (This will become relevant later in the discussion).5
Of note is that the subject (and the wider self) cannot appear directly to
itself in the focal manner of a perspectivally owned object, so although
seeming to have a subtle phenomenal character (and hence a sense of itself),
which can be enhanced during meditational practice, the subject is perpetually
elusive to its own focally attentive purview. Elusiveness is thus a key attribute
of the minimal subject, contra Strawson (this volume) who insists that a
subject can be attentively (or ‘thetically’) aware of itself as it is in the present
moment.
The self, as I've indicated, is more than just an elusive
subject qua perspective on the world: it is a subject assimilated with several
other roles. First and foremost is the role of personal owner. A personal
owner, a me, is a subject with an identity (or ‘who-I-am-ness’) as opposed to a
merely impersonal point of view. In relation to this identity as personal owner,
the existing ownership of various items, whether perspectival (such as
thoughts or feelings) or possessive (such as houses or cars), also takes on a
personal ‘mineness’ dimension. In relation to one's felt identity as a Michael
Jackson fan, for example, an autographed record by the artist is felt to be
personally, not just possessively owned. In this manner such items become
warmly infused with a sense of mineness that goes beyond a rational
recognition of one's legal status as owner of the object. Conversely, the sense
of personal ownership or mineness towards an object will seem to reveal a
facet of one's fixed self-identity as its personal owner, enhancing the sense
of me-ness. A felt identity is made perspicuous through identification, where
certain ideas (such as gender, race, character traits, basic roles) are
appropriated to a subject's perspective, such that the world seems approached
through their filter. As J. David Velleman puts it, identification occurs when a
part of the personality ‘presents a reflexive aspect to [one's] thought’ such that
it becomes one's ‘mental standpoint’ (Velleman 2002: 114). The most basic
and pervasive role to be identified with is simply that of the perspectival

                                                            
5
 See, for example, Zahavi (2005a; 9–10) and Zahavi (2005b: 122–123). The distinction between witness-
consciousness and for-me-ness is discussed further in Albahari (2009: 67–68). 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

owner. In this manner, the subject does not merely approach the world and its
objects from an impersonal psycho-physical point of view (through whatever
sense modality); it deeply identifies with that viewpoint as a concrete place
where I, the self, am coming from. In tandem with perspectival ownership,
then, the sense of personal ownership is almost always in operation whenever
one alludes to such things as ‘my thoughts’, ‘my headache’, ‘my body’, or
‘my actions’.
While feelings of desire and attachment are possibly the most salient
phenomenal indicators of a sense of personal ownership (and hence identity as
a personal owner), these feelings need not be present for the sense of such
ownership to exist. This is particularly true in cases of profuse and mundane
phenomena such as thoughts, sensations, and one's body. The sheer ubiquity
with which such items are presented as personally ‘mine’ makes it quite
impossible, in normal cases, to discern the distinct phenomenal quality of such
‘mineness’. For, as it happens, most people do not know what it is like to lack
it. It is mainly pathological impairments, where the sense of personal
ownership seems lost or compromised, that draw attention to the fact that
there is this other major type (or sense) of ownership alongside the
perspectival and possessive varieties. Subjects of anosognosia, for instance,
may feel that a paralysed limb ‘does not belong’ to them, while subjects of
depersonalization commonly sense a disconnection in ownership from many
of their thoughts.6 While in cases of depersonalization the lack of personal-
ownership feelings tends not to be global (e.g. they still identify as the subject
of the dreadful condition that has befallen them), there is nevertheless a
notable lack of identification with the perspectival owner of those thoughts
from which they do feel disconnected. With reference to any object, then, a
lack of personal mineness goes in tandem with a lack of personal me-ness.
(Note that a possible suspension in the sense of personal ownership does not
by itself prove such ownership to lack independent reality, any more than its
suspension during deep sleep would prove its lack of reality. This point will
be returned to later).
Subsumed under the role ‘personal owner’ are other frequent modes of
identity that further delineate the type of self we take ourselves to be. Two
                                                            
6
 A level of disconnection in the sense of personal ownership may sometimes occur via the mode of
agency, such that one feels that someone else has authored a particular line of thought, such as during
‘thought insertion’ in schizophrenia. As I consider the sense of agency to be grounded in a sense of personal
ownership, the general point remains: a compromise in identification as author of the thought is a
compromise in some level of identification as its personal owner. 
MIRI ALBAHARI

closely related such modes are agent and thinker. ‘The agent’ is the owner-
subject in its capacity of initiating actions. Taking pride or being ashamed of
perspectivally owned actions is an obvious way of identifying with the
perspectival owner qua agent, such that one deeply feels ‘I am the initiator of
this action’ (think of the proud winner of an Olympic medal). Such emotions
also provide evidence of regarding oneself to have special causal powers that
enable the active choice of one course of action over another, as opposed to a
passive determination by the flow of events. To feel guilty, for instance,
implies an assumption that one should not have acted in a particular way—and
hence, arguably, an assumption that one could have acted differently.
Intentional actions originate in thought, so the thinker is a closely related
mode of identity. Importantly, we take ourselves to be the originator,
controller, or observer of the thoughts, rather than to be, in essence, the
content of thought. Put in terms of an attribute, the assumed self is something
that is unconstructed—that is, not constructed from the content of thoughts
and perceptions, etc.—some underlying thing that is their precedent rather
than their product.
Any sense of identity, whether with a general role such as owner or agent,
or a specific idea about who one is (for example, a female ice-dancing
champion), evokes the elusive feeling of being bounded by that identity.
Faced with the world and its objects, the subject thus reflexively presents not
merely as a point of view, but as a unique and bounded thing with a point of
view. This attribute of boundedness is absolutely central to the assumed self:
it turns the perspectival into a personal owner. The bounded self seems,
moreover, to be perfectly unified, in that its differing and shifting roles and
identities (such as personal owner/actor/thinker, female/skater/champion)
appear seamlessly integrated within the very same subject. A feeling of
excitement at the upcoming ceremony may simultaneously trigger all the
different roles, but it does not feel to the subject as if each role or identity
corresponds to a numerically distinct self, or even to different compartments
within a single self. Importantly, the field of unity seems to extend beyond the
roles of the subject to share in the set of objects perspectivally and personally
owned by it. Perceptions, thoughts, and experiences, felt as belonging to the
subject, present as belonging to the subject's very same field of consciousness,
such that it seems natural to say: ‘I, the self, am simultaneously aware of the
white ice and the cheering crowd’, or ‘The very same self that a few minutes
ago saw the white ice heard the cheering crowd’. While the unity of
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

consciousness is a philosophical topic unto itself, the point here is simply

that unity is a feature central to the commonly assumed self at stake in this
discussion.
Unity is not only synchronic but diachronic. Unbrokenness describes that
aspect whereby unity of the self is diachronically extended, and it is useful to
divide this into (i) the specious present (temporally ordered over a very short
interval), (ii) the span from one specious present to the next, and (iii) the
longer term, whether awakening from deep sleep or persisting over a
lifetime. Invariability captures the phenomenal side to this assumed identity—
the elusive feel of it being the very same underlying ‘me’ that belies all kind
of change to body and personality. So in addition to the flux of experience,
famously noted by Hume, there is the sense of a background unbroken me that
observes the experiences, and that typically persists beyond the scope of a
waking episode. For example one may, upon awakening from deep slumber,
flinchingly recall an embarrassing venture from the night before—or perhaps
four years before—indicating a strong implicit identification with the
perspectival owner of the regrettable action. Or one may awaken with a
brilliant plan for the future. Such identification as the ‘longitudinal’ self helps
solidify the sense of being a personal owner, such that the self takes on what
Antonio Damasio (1999) calls an ‘autobiographical’ dimension (although this
feature does not seem essential to the self).7
I have mentioned unconstructedness in the context whereby the self is
tacitly but deeply assumed to be that which underlies and originates the
thoughts, rather than that which is constructed by them: their precedent rather
than their product. This assumed feature actually underpins the entire self. For
as the self qua thinker presents implicitly as that elusive, unbroken, bounded
subject which is unified with the roles of agent, owner, experiencer, and
observer, the feature of unconstructedness will extend naturally to each and
every role and attribute of the self. So if the self truly exists, as per its manner
of presentation, then every one of its features will be unconstructed—the
precedent, not the product of the stream of objects (thoughts, experiences,
perceptions) to which it tacitly seems opposed.

                                                            
7
 Galen Strawson defines an ‘Episodic’ person as such: ‘one doesn't figure oneself, the self or person one
now experiences oneself to be, as something that was there in the (further) past and will be there in the
(further) future’ (Strawson 2008: 210). He contrasts this with ‘Diachronic’ persons who do have a sense of
identity with their earlier and future selves. 
MIRI ALBAHARI

3. How Nirvana, as Construed in Pali Buddhism,

Structures the Illusion of Self

How, in general terms, might this self turn out to be illusory? Could it be
illusory in more than one way? These questions are addressed in this section,
where I propose that the standard Western ‘bundle theory’ of no-self differs
markedly from how no-self ought to be understood if nirvana, as depicted in
Pali Buddhism, is possible. As already mentioned, this will involve a major
challenge to the typical forms of Buddhist reductionism that cast no-self in
Buddhism as a type of bundle theory.
What does it take, in general terms, for something to be illusory? Illusions
(including delusions and hallucinations) essentially involve a mismatch
between appearance and reality, such that something appears to be a particular
way, when, in reality, it is not actually that way. Typical cases include the
Muller Lyer Illusion (two lines appearing to be of unequal lengths when they
are actually of equal length), a hallucination of the pink elephant, the sense of
being watched by extra-terrestrials. In all these instances, the world does not
veridically underpin the way the world appears to be, whether the medium of
appearance is perceptual or cognitive. If the self is illusory, then the world
(which includes the world of subjectivity) must similarly fail to deliver at least
one of its defining characteristics as presented via the self's characteristic
mode of appearance.
Given that the self purports to be something that is entirely unconstructed
in all its defining features, a straightforward route to casting the self as
illusory suggests itself: argue that at least one of these features is constructed
from the content of those thoughts, experiences, and perceptions to which the
self seems opposed. In this way, the self will not be what it fundamentally
appears to be—it will be (at least in part) the product, rather than the
precedent, of thoughts and experiences. Put another way, the sense of self,
which presents as being thoroughly grounded in (and actually identical to) the
(unconstructed) self, will be grounded in factors other than this self.
A word about the sense of self is in order here, since ‘self’ and ‘sense of
self’ are sometimes confused. The sense of self is the appearance of a self,
pertaining to the reflexive feeling or conscious impression of being a self.
Throughout the discussion, I have been supposing that this feeling, although
elusive to attentive purview, is real enough. What is in question is the veracity
of its content: the self. Indeed, philosophers who deny the existence of the self
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

do not generally deny the sense of self, any more than those who deny the
existence of libertarian free will would deny the common feeling of such free
will. In fact, as libertarian free will is sometimes (although not always)
ascribed to the self in its capacity of being an agent, it can, because of the
history of debate on the subject, provide a useful illustration of just how it is
that a feature of the self (that we assume we are) may fail to reflect reality:
how the sense of self, in other words, may fail to be grounded in a self.
Suppose, then, that determinism is correct, leaving no ontological room
for an entity that could genuinely originate one course of action over another
(the past being what it is). Suppose also that we (most humans) have a sense
of being a self with this controversial sort of agency (a feeling that may be
evidenced through such emotions as guilt). The feeling of free will will
reflexively convey the cognitive content of being an entity that really does
exercise such agency—not just of appearing to exercise it. So if determinism
is to rule out the reality of such agency, then the sense of being a
self qua libertarian agent will not be grounded in an actual agent-self, as it
appears to be, but (at least partially) in the content of thoughts and feelings to
which the self seems ontologically opposed. The thoughts and feelings will, in
other words, be helping to create the conscious impression of there being a
source of agency that is able to exercise libertarian control over the thoughts
and feelings and actions—when, in reality, there is no such source of agency.
The self, qua libertarian agent, will thus be an illusion created by the content
of thought (etc.). It will fail to exist in the essential manner that it purports to
exist, as something that stands entirely behind the thoughts, authoring the
intentional actions.
To recapitulate: if the self exists, then it is an entity with a conjunction of
unconstructed essential roles and features. Should at least one of these roles or
features (such as agency) turn out to be mentally constructed, then the self, so
defined, will not exist. The usual (but unacknowledged) strategy at the heart
of most attempts to deny the existence of self is thus to argue that at least one
essential feature of the self is a mental construct. Seeing this strategy at work
will help to determine more exactly how the typical Western construal of no-
self could differ from the way in which the self would fail to exist if nirvana
were possible. I first examine some standard Western accounts of no-self
before comparing this analysis to the case at hand.
David Hume is commonly considered to have pioneered the Western
philosophical position on no-self, his work sometimes compared by scholars
MIRI ALBAHARI

to the Buddhist no-self doctrine. He argues that, instead of there being an

unbroken, underlying entity which unites the varying perceptions and
accounts for their identity, as there appears to be, there is merely:

a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other

with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement.…There is properly no simplicity [unity] in it [the mind] at any
one time, nor identity in different, whatever natural propension we may
have to imagine that simplicity and identity.(Hume 1739: I, IV, vi)

As for what accounts for the sense of identity:

The identity which we ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious [viz.,
constructed] one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to
vegetables and animal bodies. It cannot therefore have a different origin,
but must proceed from a like operation in the imagination upon like
objects.…identity [and simplicity] is nothing really belonging to these
different perceptions, and uniting them together, but is merely a quality
which we attribute to them, because of the union of their ideas in the
imagination when we reflect upon them. (Hume 1739: I, IV, vi)

Hume regards the appearance of the self's unity and identity to be

underpinned, not by factors that include actual unconstructed unity
(‘simplicity’) and unbroken, unchanging identity (‘uninterruptedness’ and
‘invariability’), but by mental factors such as ‘the union of their ideas in the
imagination when we reflect upon them’. The self, in other words, is a mental
construct by virtue of the fact that unity and (short and long-term) identity
have constructed status. The illusion is hence that of an unconstructed entity, a
self, whose features of unity and unbroken identity objectively underpin
our sense of unity and identity. In reality, there are no such principles of unity
or identity that actually underpin this impression, either in the self or in the
mind. There is only a diversity of rapidly fleeting perceptions that, when acted
upon by the memory and imagination, create the impression of an entity with
unity and identity.
Casting unity and unbroken persistence as central to the self's constructed,
and hence, illusory status turns out to be a strategy common to virtually all
Western accounts of no-self. For instance, William James makes it clear that
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

the unity and unbrokenness we commonly ascribe to the self are

unconstructed:

common-sense insists that the unity of all the selves is not a mere
appearance of similarity or continuity, ascertained after the fact. She is
sure that it involves a real belonging to a real Owner [a source of unity],
to a pure spiritual entity of some kind. Relation to this entity is what
makes the self's constituents stick together as they do for
thought.(James 1890: 337)

On James's position, the self's supposed unity and unbrokenness is, as

Owen Flanagan puts it, ‘an after-the-fact construction, not a before-the-fact
condition for the possibility of experience’ (Flanagan 1992: 177, 178).
Flanagan's own defense of the no-self doctrine follows James' insofar as he
bestows illusory status to the self principally via the features of unity and
unbrokenness (with other features such as agency riding on this):

The illusion is that there are two things: on one side, a self, an ego, an ‘I’,
that organizes experience, originates action, and accounts for our
unchanging identity as persons and, on the other side, the stream of
experience. If this view is misleading, what is the better view? The better
view is that what there is, and all there is, is the stream of experience.
‘Preposterous! What then does the thinking?’ comes the response. The
answer is that ‘the thoughts themselves are the thinkers’ (James, 1892,
83)8…We are egoless.(Flanagan 1992: 178)

On a similar theme, Daniel Dennett writes:

Each normal individual of this species makes a self. Out of its brain it
spins a web of words and deeds and, like other creatures, it doesn't have to
know what it's doing; it just does it…Our tales are spun, but for the most
part we don't spin them; they spin us. Our human consciousness, and our
narrative selfhood, is their product, not their source…These strings or
streams of narrative issue forth as if from a single source…their effect on

                                                            
8
 Flanagan cites William James (1892), Psychology: The Briefer Course, G. Allport (ed)., New York:
Harper and Row, 1961. 
MIRI ALBAHARI

any audience is to encourage them to (try to) posit a unified agent whose
words they are, about whom they are: in short, to posit a center of
narrative gravity. (Dennett 1991: 418)

These thinkers typify the way in which the self is denied in Western
philosophy, by giving constructed and thereby illusory status to the central
unified subject, where the unity is understood to be both synchronic and
diachronic. While the accounts differ in their details of how exactly the
impression of unity and unbrokenness is constructed—such as which mental
faculties contribute to the illusion—all of them deny the existence of self
principally via this avenue. The impression of unity and unbrokenness, as it
qualifies a minimal subject (or perspectival owner) standing opposed to the
stream of experience, must be entirely fabricated from the bundle of discrete
mental phenomena to which it seems opposed. Essentially, they are what are
known as bundle theories of the self.
I now ask: is this way of understanding the self as illusory—as a bundle
theory that denies unconstructed reality to unity and unbrokenness to the
self qua minimal subject—in line with how we should understand the status of
‘no-self’ if nirvana, as depicted in the Pali sutras, is to be possible? As I noted
in the Introduction, this is exactly how Buddhist philosophical tradition has
typically understood the doctrine of no-self. To this end, there are different
versions of the bundle theory. The more extreme version (a non-reflexive
reductionism inspired by Abhidharma tradition), has it that all impressions of
unity—synchronic and diachronic—are illusory constructs from an ontology
of momentary, causally connected aggregates. A less extreme version of
bundle theory (which I call ‘reflexive reductionism’, inspired mainly by
Yogācāra-Sautrāntika tradition) allows a measure of synchronic unity to exist
through each conscious experience being reflexively aware of itself (perhaps
for the length of a specious present).9 Such temporal unity, however, does not
extend beyond the specious present, and it belongs not to any subject, but to
the discrete experiences that form the changing stream of consciousness. All
variants of bundle theory within the gamut of Buddhist tradition thus uphold
the unreality or illusory status of an unbroken and unified witness-
consciousness which, as modus operandi of the (minimal) subject, stands apart
                                                            
9
 My use of the term ‘reflexive reductionism’ is intended to depict the allegiance to bundle-theory, rather
than reflect how its advocates would label their position (they would probably not, in their own context of
use, call it ‘reductionist’). 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

from and observes the stream of experience. (Note that while Dreyfus (this
volume) does not regard reflexive reductionism as a bundle theory, it counts
as a bundle theory for the purposes of this discussion). Now I am well aware
that the argument about to be offered, which defends nirvana (in the sutras) as
entailing the unbroken unity of observational witness-consciousness (at least
during the scope of waking life), flies in the face of many Buddhist
philosophical traditions—and so will in that sense be denied by many to be
truly ‘Buddhist’. So be it. What I do contend is that my position offers a more
coherent philosophical reconstruction of the early Buddhist sutras than the
bundle theory, and that the position, although not stated explicitly in the
sutras, is quite consistent with them.
Before commencing with the argument, I need to say more about how
reflexive and non-reflexive varieties of reductionism are to be distinguished.
According to reflexive reductionism (discussed in various forms by Dreyfus,
Thompson, MacKenzie, and Krueger in this volume) ‘consciousness cognizes
itself in cognizing its object’ (Siderits, this volume, p. 318), so there is nothing
more to consciousness than the cognizing experiences themselves. Put another
way, the immediate object of a cognition is not the object out there in the
world (such as the blueberry): it is the phenomenal experience of cognizing
the object and ‘the experience of seeing blue is just the occurrence of a
cognition that has blue color as its form’ (Siderits, this volume, p. 317). A
stream of different consciousnesses thus amounts to a stream of multi-modal
experiences: there is no separate cognizing subject. According to non-
reflexive reductionism (discussed by Siderits in this volume), consciousness is
not self-intimating in this way: it is an object-directed awareness that arises in
conjunction with the various sensory or mental objects (including
experiences) that form its intentional content. I address each version in turn,
beginning with the latter.
On Buddhist non-reflexive reductionism ‘consciousness arises in
dependence on contact between sense faculty and sensible object.…the
consciousness that takes the color of the flower as object must be distinct from
that which takes its smell as object a moment later’ (Siderits, this volume, p.
313). Each momentary consciousness imparts information to the next
moment: there is no temporal gap between each moment. Each composite
moment of object-directed consciousness (if it is, contra reflexive
reductionism, more than just the occurrence of the target mental or sensory
object) will presumably have built into it an invariant observational
MIRI ALBAHARI

component, by virtue of which it is labeled ‘conscious’, and by virtue of

which the illusion of unbroken observational consciousness, central to the
illusion of self, is generated (just as the illusion of a continuous unified circle
of fire in a whirling firebrand is generated by the invariant fiery nature of each
distinct occurrence of the fire). Now I think that despite their differences,
Buddhist traditions would converge in supposing that nirvana involves a
transformative insight into the nature of mental reality that is based primarily
upon first-person experiential observation, rather than intellectual puzzle-
solving. One cannot get enlightened simply by studying philosophy or
calculating laboratory results. On the Buddhist (non-reflexive) reductionist
picture, then, the ‘person’ who has attained nirvana will directly ‘see through’
the illusion of self by viewing the nature of persons to be nothing but a
fleeting causally connected bundle of discrete aggregates—including the very
cognition that discerns it to be so. Our previous deep-seated assumption of
being an unbroken, unified conscious self that witnesses the flow of
phenomena will be dramatically overturned, as that consciousness itself
becomes discerned as part of the very flow. Burmese meditation master
Venerable Mahāsi Sayādaw describes the keen level of discernment in a way
that lends support to the reductionist picture:

And the dissolution of consciousness noticing those bodily processes

is apparent to him along with the dissolution of the bodily processes.
Also while he is noticing other bodily and mental processes, their
dissolution, too, will be apparent to him in the same manner.
Consequently, the knowledge will come to him that whatever part of
the whole body is noticed, that object ceases first, and after it the
consciousness engaged in noticing that object follows in its wake.
From that the meditator will understand very clearly in the case of
each successive pair the dissolution of any object whatsoever and the
dissolution of the consciousness noticing that very object. (It should
be borne in mind that this refers only to understanding arrived at
through direct experience by one engaged in noticing only; it is not an
opinion derived from mere reasoning).(Sayādaw, 1994: 23)

Given that nirvana must entail, as Venerable Sayādaw intimates, ‘an

understanding arrived at through direct experience’ as opposed to ‘an opinion
derived from mere reasoning’, I think that there is something incoherent about
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

a picture which, when taken literally, has the meditator experientially aware
that their discerning consciousness is impermanent. I contend that the best
way to make sense of such a passage is to suppose that the meditator is
actually aware of different directions that are being taken by consciousness (in
virtue of the objects)—a picture that does not entail Buddhist reductionism. So
when the Pali sutras speak of consciousness as being impermanent, I take this
to mean that the intentional content of consciousness—that to which
consciousness is directed—is constantly changing. One moment there is
consciousness of green and round, and the next, consciousness of crunching
and apple-taste. But this is not the same as saying that the observational
component that is directed towards these objects is itself arising and passing
away. So what is my argument against this interpretation of Pali Buddhism?
Let me first be clear on what I am not arguing. I am not arguing that the
impression of unified unbroken consciousness is impossible under reductivist
ontology. My argument is instead based upon an epistemic aspect that grows
out of the idea that the primary mode for understanding the mind, in nirvana,
is experiential. Nirvana is often depicted as ‘ultimate’ in the Pali sutras, not
only in an axiological but an epistemic sense. Statements made from the
nirvanic perspective are taken to be authoritative: there is never the idea that
they could be usurped by philosophical or scientific discovery. For example,
there is never any intimation in the Pali sutras that the Buddha or arahant
could be mistaken in saying such things as ‘conditioned phenomena are
impermanent, conducive to suffering and without a self’. I call this the
‘Experience Condition’:
Experience Condition: The primary mode of knowledge/wisdom/insight,
in the nirvanic state, is based on first-person experience and the first-person
perspective has authority over the third-person theoretical perspective. In
cases of a conflict between first‐personal nirvanic perspective and third-
person theoretical perspective, regarding the nature of the conscious mind, the
first‐person nirvanic perspective trumps the theoretical.10
                                                            
10
Note that I am not defending the Experience Condition as a stand-alone condition in this paper, although
towards the end of the paper it re-emerges as a suggested way to save the appearances. In relation to the
concept of nirvana across Buddhist traditions, however, the Experience Condition may need further
defense. For example, Siderits (this volume) points out that in Yogācāra subjective idealism, consciousness
is regarded as ultimately non-dual in nature. Nirvanic realization will involve a complete dissolution of the
idea that there is an external world with its objects—and hence, according to Siderits, a dissolution in the
feeling of subjective interiority which must depend upon the subject/object split. Thus ‘Yogācāra subjective
idealism involves an explicit disavowal of the perspectival self argued for by Albahari’ (this volume p.
318). So if the ideal nirvanic state involves no sense of interiority or first-person perspective, then how can
MIRI ALBAHARI

I will argue that the Experience Condition entails (on the nirvanic
hypothesis) that the aspect of consciousness which cognizes the
impermanence of phenomena is neither discrete, nor reducible to the changing
stream—at least during wakefulness. I begin by asking: how would the
cognizance of an impermanent consciousness (by an impermanent
consciousness) work on a reductivist account? It could not be that each
moment of consciousness reflexively observes its own coming and going. For
regardless of whether or not we are dealing with reflexive consciousness, it
would entail the contradictory state of a conscious moment being present to its
own coming and going. The impermanence (or diachronic disunity) of the
discerning cognitions must therefore, on any reductivist account, be
experienced retrospectively.11 So let us suppose that a discerning cognition at
t3 is a momentary member in a causal chain of conscious moments t1- tn and
that it retrospectively (whether via memory or retention) discerns the
impermanence of prior members of the chain. As this cannot include itself (t3),
it will have to discern, say, the numerical transition from moments t1 and t2,
before itself becoming retrospectively discerned as impermanent by a later
cognition, say t5. And here is where I see the problem for non-
reflexive reductionism, for the only way that t3 can experientially distinguish
the transition from t1 to t2is by discerning the changing content of t1 to t2—the
object towards which each consciousness is directed. But this does not tell us
that at each moment, the observational component is in fact numerically
discrete—it just tells us that the objects are. There is in fact no way to
phenomenologically tell whether the underlying ‘objective’ scenario (if there
is a further truth to the matter) is that of a contiguous chain of numerically
                                                                                                                                              
nirvanic authority be indexed to a first-person perspective? Here we must tread carefully; ‘first-person
perspective’ or ‘interiority’ is ambiguous. If it means ‘experience confined to a dualistic subject/object
structure’ then I would agree that ultimate non-dual consciousness must lack this structure, and so the first-
person perspective must lack ultimate authority. But if it means that ‘there is something it is like to
experience non-dual consciousness’—and elsewhere (2006) I attempt to convey in some detail what this
could mean—then ‘first-person perspective’ would not be disavowed by non-dual consciousness. (I suspect
that it lies behind many of the intimations that nirvana is experienced, not inferred). Be that as it may, I
would insist that so long as objects are experienced, the dualistic (subject/object) first-person perspective,
with its perspectival subject, is unavoidable. And so long as the domain of judgment from the nirvanic
perspective is about subjective experience in its relation to its objects, then the Experience Condition, even
if construed narrowly, remains intact. If it cannot but seem as if objects are being witnessed by (a subject's)
unbroken conscious awareness, then (if nirvana is possible) this will indeed be how things are, even if the
unbroken awareness, in its intrinsic nature, is not confined to the perspective of a subject.

 
11
 I put aside any problem that might arise with elusiveness of the discerning cognition, as it is not clear
that non-reflexive reductionists would accept this aspect, and I want to engage in the debate on their terms. 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

discrete discerning consciousnesses, generating the illusion of unbroken

consciousness taking different objects, or that of an unbroken discerning
consciousness cognizing an array of different objects—in line with how things
seem. That is because the observational component, which renders each
moment of non-reflexive consciousness to be conscious, is qualitatively
invariant, leaving no marker by which the contiguous numerical transition
could be experientially discerned (it's not as if there will be a little jolt at each
transition). The observational component to each conscious moment will thus
seem, from the first person experiential perspective, to be unbroken—
regardless of the underlying ontology. To use Thomas Metzinger's (2003)
phrase, the mind will be ‘phenomenally transparent’ to the extent that any
underlying ontology, regarding the impermanence of the discerning cognition,
will be inaccessible to subjective experience. This is a problem for non-
reflexive reductionism. We should expect the nirvanic insight into
impermanence and no-self to be experientially and cognitively dramatic,
invoking a shift from the incorrect to the correct perspective. But how could
this happen, if there is no way to phenomenologically discern the incorrect
(unbroken) from the correct (discrete) state?
At this point, the non-reflexive reductivist may reply: if the nature of the
discerning cognition cannot be determined one way or the other, then we
cannot conclude that the discerning cognition is unbroken, any more than we
can conclude that it is discrete. Here is where the Experience Condition comes
in. If it is accepted that the nirvanic first-person perspective is authoritative on
the nature of our mental life, and that from the nirvanic perspective it cannot
but seem as if there is unbroken observational consciousness from one
moment to the next (sustained throughout waking life), then there won't be a
hidden ontology at variance with the appearance. Things will be as they seem:
appearance and reality will converge. Inferring the discerning consciousness
to be discrete (as Siderits does) involves, contra the Experience Condition,
taking the third-person perspective, with its method of philosophical
inference, to be authoritative. In Venerable Sayādaw's terms, it is putting ‘an
opinion derived from mere reasoning’ ahead of ‘understanding arrived at
through direct experience’. If the discerning consciousness does turn out to be
discrete, it cannot therefore match the model of non-reflexive reductionism.
Does reflexive reductionism fare any better? The problem with non-
reflexive reductionism arose because the invariant observational component
within each moment of consciousness made it impossible to discern its
MIRI ALBAHARI

numerical transition from one conscious moment to the next. Reflexive

reductionism does not appear to succumb to this problem, for any impression
of unbroken and invariant conscious observation must crumble under sharper
scrutiny. Why? Because there is no more to consciousness than simply the
stream of experience itself (e.g. visual, auditory, proprioceptive)—there is no
separate observational component that takes each experience as an object.
Each experience is reflexively aware of itself, which is what makes it
a conscious experience. And as each conscious experience is qualitatively
different, it will be quite possible to retrospectively tell (say at t3) when a
moment of consciousness (say t1) has ceased and another (t2) has begun.
Hence each reflexive moment of consciousness will be experientially
discernible as impermanent, such that it does not fall prey to the Experience
Condition. The findings from this first-person perspective of authority will
trump any theory that insists, in line with the self-illusion, that there really is a
minimal unified subject that unbrokenly observes the changing phenomena.
Any impression of a separate invariant subject of experience will be generated
through cognitive processes (and theoretical accretions) that have us paying
insufficient attention to the degree of change in our conscious life. Nirvana
will thus entail insight into the real fact that the degree of change, being far
more dramatic than we'd assumed, does not support an unbroken self (or
indeed subject) that observes the stream.
It may be tempting to object that while non-reflexive reductionism
goes beyond the scope of experience, by attributing numerical discreteness to
an invariant observational component of consciousness, reflexive
reductionism under-describes the scope of experience, by failing to
acknowledge that there is more to conscious experience than just the
manifold. For does not the very idea of a nirvanic first-person
perspective convey that there is more to our conscious life than just the
manifold of experience, and might this dimension not point to an invariant
observing subject? If reflexive reductionism fails to describe the
phenomenology of conscious experience properly, by leaving out the first-
person perspective, then it will, at the very least, not satisfy the Experience
Condition.
This objection, as it turns out, misconstrues reflexive reductionism—or at
least the versions that have been portrayed in certain schools of Indian,
Chinese, and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy (see Thompson, Dreyfus, Siderits,
MacKenzie, and Krueger, this volume, for a discussion of these positions). If
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

we look more closely at the kind of phenomenal considerations advanced in

favor of reflexive reductionism, we will see that the first-person perspective is
not ignored. For instance, in his discussion of the position (this volume),
Dreyfus speaks of the ‘first-person self-givenness’ of experience. The notion
of first-person givenness has been articulated at some length by Zahavi (2005,
this volume), whose phenomenologically inspired position shares with
reflexive reductionism the central tenet of bestowing reality to only the stream
of experience, rather than to a witnessing subject of the stream (his insistence
on diachronic unity between specious presents within the stream differentiates
him from the full-fledged reflexive reductionist). Of first-person givenness,
Zahavi maintains that our conscious experience is not deeply impersonal or
anonymous but is structured by a fundamental self-givenness in such a way
that ‘the experiences I am living through are given differently (but not
necessarily better) to me than to anybody else’ (Zahavi, this volume, p. 59).
Hence no matter how similar my experience of the green apple is to Miguel's,
there is a perspectival belongingness between my experiences that make them
cohere together as ‘mine’ in a way that they do not with any of Miguel's
experiences. Zahavi continues: ‘…anyone who denies the for-me-ness or
mineness of experience simply fails to recognize an essential constitutive
aspect of experience. Such a denial would be tantamount to denial of the first-
person perspective’ (Zahavi, this volume, p. 59). Or as Evan Thompson puts
it, the experience (if from memory) ‘is given from within as an experience
formerly lived through first-personally, that is, by me’ (Thompson, this
volume, p. 173). In other words, all our experiences are presented through a
perspective and this perspectival for-me-ness reflexively had by each one of
our experiences constitutes our first-person perspective (as the experiences
seem to be forthe same me), lending our experiential life the impression of
unity across time.
But while this may now correctly describe our experience, the type of
problem that plagued non-reflexive reductionism threatens to re-emerge. For
how can we phenomenally tell whether the situation is that of numerically
discrete and contiguous (qualitatively invariant) for-me-nesses, or just one
unbroken for-me-ness, which may well point to an invariant observer? The
reflexive reductionist will again respond that this misunderstands their
position—we can tell. Just as the identical sheen belonging to each colored
bead on a string doesn't prevent us discerning the different beads by their
color and shape, the identical reflexive for-me-ness belonging to each
MIRI ALBAHARI

conscious experience doesn't prevent us from discerning the different

experiences by their varying qualities. For remember: on reflexive
reductionism, a qualitative change within experience amounts to a numerical
switch in consciousness; diachronic unity (at least beyond the scope of the
specious present), along with the subject as locus for synchronic unity, is
fundamentally an illusion.
But we may now wonder where this leaves the commonly asserted idea of
an invariant and separate subject standing apart from and observing the stream
of experiences. Are philosophers such as Hume, James, and Dennett
uniformly mistaken in their description of the phenomenology of our
experience—and indeed, of the very sense of self enumerated earlier in this
piece? Is the minimal observant subject no more than a careless theoretical
reification that evaporates under careful phenomenal scrutiny? It would
appear so, according to its proponents. Reflexive reductionists are generally
adamant that a separate perspectival observer (or observational component) is
not to be introduced into either the phenomenology or the ontology of
conscious life. In keeping with this aspect of the position, Zahavi goes so far
as to redefine ‘the self’ as the subjectivity of experience: ‘the self is defined as
the very [invariant] subjectivity of experience and is not to be taken to be
something that exists independently of or in separation from the experiential
flow’ (Zahavi, this volume, p. 60).
The crucial issue at this stage is not that of whether there really is an
invariant observational component (or perspectival owner) that is intrinsic to
our conscious life, but whether there seems to be—or more accurately,
whether there must seem to be (such that it survives phenomenal scrutiny).
While I agree that for-me-ness characterizes our experience, I contend that it
structures our conscious life far more dramatically than as just a reflexive
sheen on the bead of each experience. It necessarilybifurcates our experience
into subject and object. For so long as our diverse experiences seem to be
for me—and for the very same me over time, no less—there is no escaping
that there will seem to be a perspectival ‘me’ that the experiences are for. Or
toput it more simply: so long as objects are experienced as being given to a
subject there must seem to be a subject to which they are given. (Galen
Strawson, this volume, p. 275, argues for a logical corollary of this position,
claiming that so long as there is subjectivity, there must, as a matter of logical
fact, be a minimal subject—although I am not going so far as to claim yet that
the subject is real.)This strongly suggests that the phenomenology of
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

experience contains more than simply the flow with its first-personal
givenness. As a matter of phenomenal necessity, there will seem to be a
perspectival owner that stands apart from the stream, such that it cognizes the
experiences that are first-personally ‘given’ to it.12
Suppose the reflexive reductionists re-assess their phenomenological
stance, agreeing that the ascription of first-person givenness entails the
(elusive) appearance of a subject to which the experiences are given. They are
still free to defend the ontological side of their position by insisting that,
despite appearances, there is no separate subject of experience. If they are
correct in this assessment, then the witnessing subject will be a mere illusion
projected forth by the invariant dimension of an otherwise diverse stream of
experiences. If a subject-realist is correct in their ontological assessment, then
the appearance of the observing subject will reflect how things actually are.
And here is where reflexive reductionism does get into trouble. Just as the
dispute over whether the observational component is unbroken cannot be
resolved without going beyond the first-personal appearance and appealing to
philosophical analysis, the dispute over whether the minimal observing
subject (to whom experiences are given) is chimerical cannot be settled
without going beyond how things must appear. So if reflexive reductionists
are correct in supposing the subject of experience to be chimerical rather than
real, then nirvanic insight into this fact will have to be purely intellectual,
rather than experientially based. With no experiential avenue through which to
characterize the potential shift from incorrect to correct perspective, the
dramatic nirvanic insight into no-self will be left unaccounted for.
But as mentioned earlier, the Pali sutras do not leave such matters
unsettled: matters are arbitrated by the Experience Condition, which privileges
the first-person perspective of nirvana. If it must seem, from the nirvanic
perspective, that there is a minimal subject of our changing experience, then
this will not be a mere appearance that can be usurped by theoretical
inference. The limits of nirvanic appearance will dictate the scope of mental
reality. So if nirvana (as depicted in the Pali sutras) is possible, reflexive
reductionism does no better than the non-reflexive version at eliminating the
invariant and unbrokenly observing subject of experience. The cognitive
transformation of nirvana, I conclude, cannot be an insight into the fact that

                                                            
12
 I develop this line of argument from another angle in Albahari (2009). 
MIRI ALBAHARI

our mental life lacks such a perspectival owner and entirely comprises fleeting
cognitions.
This leaves us with the question: in virtue of what features should we say
that the self is constructed (hence illusory), if nirvana, as depicted in Pali
Buddhism, is to be possible? How do we construe the cognitive
transformation whereby the constructed status of the self is seen through? I
contend that personal ownership and boundedness (and agency to the extent
that it requires identity as a personal owner of the actions) are the most likely
features of the self to be constructed. To reiterate: a personal owner is a
perspectival owner that has identified with a variety of roles (including the
basic role of perspectival owner), such that the bare witnessing perspective is
cemented into a definitive thing with an identity (a ‘me’). It is a subject with
personalized boundaries, which personally (not just perspectivally) owns its
thoughts, perceptions, feelings, experiences, and possessions. Given that there
are known pathologies which compromise the usually ubiquitous sense of
bounded identity, it is quite possible to conceive of a state, akin to global
depersonalization, where all sense of bounded identity is lost. This opens up
the distinct cognitive potential for a transformative experiential insight into
the reality of no-self, although by all accounts it will not be pathological.
On this hypothesis, the illusion of self will arise through the mechanism of
identification. Identification (to reiterate) is the appropriation of mental
content to the subject's perspective, such that the content seems to qualify (and
hence filter) the very outlook through which the world is approached. To the
untrained perspective, it will appear as if identification is not constructing, but
revealing various aspects of the self's permanent, prior existence. But the
bounded self will in fact, on this hypothesis, be constructed through the
process of identification. On the face of it, this sounds rather similar to how
MacKenzie describes the process of ‘self-appropriation’ (MacKenzie, this
volume p. 264). There is a crucial difference, however. On MacKenzie's
construal of Buddhism (a version of reflexive reductionism), the minimal
unbroken subject emerges from the act of appropriation, giving it a
constructed status (à la bundle theory), whereas on my construal of Buddhism,
the minimal unbroken subject is the unconstructed locus of appropriation.
With each act of identification, the perspectival owner imports its
unconstructed, unified and unbroken witness-consciousness into the illusion
of self, such that it appears that the bounded self is the originator of these
qualities. And with each act of identification, the discrete mental content
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

(identified with by the minimal subject) colors the perspectival outlook of the
subject, such that the unconstructed subject appears as a bounded personal
owner. (The dual constructed/unconstructed contribution is the reason I call it
the two-tiered illusion of self). To the extent that unity and unbrokenness are
ascribed to a subject that seems personally bounded, the unconstructed
features will themselves undergo a measure of distortion. Hence: thoughts,
feelings, perceptions, and experiences will seem presented to a personal
unified owner insofar as there is the sense of being a someone with a personal
boundary that operates from, and is in charge of, the unified perspective. The
personal unified owner/agent/thinker will assume a thicker diachronic identity
as the natural (moment-to-moment) unbrokenness of witness-consciousness
becomes folded into the impression of a bounded self with a life-history and
anticipated future that plans, remembers, deliberates, and wishes.
In view of this analysis, I propose that nirvana, as a deep and
transformative insight into no-self, be understood as the culmination of a
process whereby the trained use of witness-consciousness, through meditation,
brings about a full de-identification from all mental and physical
phenomena.13 The result will be the undoing of the self illusion. How exactly
the process of de-identification could work is a topic for further research, but
the general idea, I contend, is as follows. Identification is the appropriation of
highly impermanent mental content (objects) to a subject's first-person
perspective. So long as the objects remain appropriated to the subject's
perspective, as part of the self's ‘unconstructed’ identity, their status as
impermanent objects will be effectively rendered invisible, such that the
subject is change-blind to their coming and going. The process of meditation
will train the subject's attention to become increasingly percipient ofthe
degree to which mental phenomena do change. So long as objects are being
viewed for what they really are—as changeable objects—they cannot be
simultaneously appropriated to the subject's perspective. By extrapolation, a
full observation of all perspectival objects in their true state of transience,
from moment to conscious moment, will imply a complete lack of
identification with any of them. I anticipate that the process of de-
identification would gain extra momentum as the subject repeatedly observes,

                                                            
13
 The general strategy of attaining nirvana, through de-identifying from all phenomena, has support from
the famous Anattā-lakkhaṇa Sutta in the Pali Canon. In this, the Buddha urges his disciples to lose the
sense of personal ownership and identification towards all categories of object (mental and physical), such
that there is the discernment: ‘This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am’. 
MIRI ALBAHARI

with increasing clarity, the mechanism by which identification works (via its
undoing). Just as uncovering a magician's trick makes it impossible to keep on
being fooled by it, lifting the veil of identification will make it impossible to
remain fooled by its content of self-identity. Viewing the real nature of
consciousness as unbounded by ties of identification is, I hold, what nirvanic
insight actually entails. It may be tempting to hold that in view of such a
realization, the arahant now believes ‘I am not a bounded self—I am witness-
consciousness’. This is misguided, for such a belief would incur further
identification and hence a new binding identity. Nevertheless, I contend that
nirvana involves a direct realization that consciousness, in the impersonal
sense, is ownerless, in the personal sense.

4. Implications for the Everyday Mind

At the outset, I intimated that investigation into the psychological

possibility of nirvana could have important implications for how we are to
understand the architecture of the everyday mind. I have defended a position
on how to best interpret the doctrine of no-self if nirvana, as portrayed in Pali
Buddhism, is indeed possible. So if nirvana is psychologically possible, it will
place significant constraints upon the structure of the everyday mind, such that
at the very least it (a) harbors an illusion of self that is (b) constructed in the
prescribed ‘two-tiered’ manner (with the constructed and unconstructed
contributors). (Conversely, should it turn out that there is a self, or that the
bundle theory of no-self is correct, then nirvana, as I've depicted it, will not be
psychologically possible). In this section, I sketch some independent reasons
to suppose that the self is a two-tiered illusion. While this will not, of course,
suffice to prove the psychological possibility of such nirvana, it will
strengthen the case for supposing that it is possible. I approach this task in two
parts: first, through gesturing at some empirical evidence that suggests the
mind to have a structure compatible with a two-tiered illusion of self, and
second, via an argument which suggests the structure to be indeed best
explained by the two-tiered illusion of self (with constructed and
unconstructed contributors).
Is there reason to suppose that the mind could be structured in a way that
is compatible with the two-tiered illusion of self? What sort of empirical
evidence might count towards such a hypothesis? I contend that the right sort
of evidence would involve established cases, in neuropsychological literature,
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

where there appears to be the presence of perspectival ownership (and hence

witness-consciousness) without any sense of personal ownership. For this
combination, after all, is what survives in the ‘ownerless’ consciousness of
nirvana. The potential absence of personal-ownership feelings would provide
some evidence that personal ownership is not essential to conscious life,
increasing the likelihood of it being constructed (and hence, amenable to
deconstruction). Conversely, the perpetual persistence of perspectival
ownership to conscious life would increase the likelihood that it is an
essential, unconstructed feature of the mind (that can perhaps be utilized in an
attempt to undermine the sense of personal ownership).
It is perhaps ironic, then, that the clearest evidence (outside the Buddhist
domain) for perspectival ownership sans personal ownership lies in that of
pathological brainstates—quite opposite to exalted nirvana. Earlier in the
paper, I alluded to the pathologies of depersonalization and anosognosia,
where the impairment appeared to compromise a degree of personal but not
perspectival ownership over one's thoughts, feelings, and body. For example,
in episodes of depersonalization, there is often a reported sense of
disconnection from streams of perspectivally owned thought, such that it is
not uncommon to hear phrases like ‘the thoughts that cross my mind do not
belong to me’. In these cases, it seems that there is little doubt that the type of
ownership compromised is personal and not perspectival. However, the very
fact that such subjects commonly report being distressed about their condition
would suggest they still identify as the subject of the distressing symptoms
and hence, as a personal owner that takes itself to be bounded by its
predicament. What is needed is evidence of perspectival ownership coupled
with a complete lack of personal ownership feelings.14
Such evidence, I contend, may well be found in the pathological
impairments of epileptic automatism, akinetic mutism, and the advanced onset
of Alzheimer's disease (Damasio 1999: 98), as well as in infants or perhaps
people awakening from general anaesthetic. In an episode of epileptic or
absence automatism, which can be brought on by a brain seizure, patients will
suddenly freeze whatever they are doing, and after a few seconds of
suspended animation, perform simple actions (such as walking about) with a
                                                            
14
 It may be suggested that creative absorption and highly attentive ‘flow states’ provide better examples of
states where [the sense of] personal ownership has dropped away while perspectival ownership is present.
Perhaps this is true. But, it is not apparent to me whether such states, short of being had by someone who is
an arahant (hence presupposing the psychological possibility of nirvana), provide clear-cut documented
evidence of cases where there is no remnant [sense] of personal ownership. 
MIRI ALBAHARI

completely blank expression. Upon recovering from the episode, the

bewildered patient will have no memory of what just occurred. Damasio, who
had such patients in his care, writes:

[The patient] would have remained awake and attentive enough to process
the object that came next into his perceptual purview, but inasmuch as we
can deduce from the situation, that is all that would go on in the mind.
There would have been no plan, no forethought, no sense of an individual
organism wishing, wanting, considering, believing. There would have
been no sense of self, no identifiable person with a past and an anticipated
future—specifically, no core self and no autobiographical
self.(Damasio 1999: 98).

This passage, I believe, provides good evidence to suppose that, through

suspension of the ‘core self’ (corresponding closely to the sense of self that
has been described in this paper), the feeling of personal ownership—with its
trappings of identification and emotional concern—can be entirely absent,
while bare perspectival ownership remains through the patient's simply being
awake enough to respond minimally to his environment.15 (The
‘autobiographical self’ is an extension of the core self, by which the idea of
one's personal history and anticipated future becomes integrated with one's
assumed identity).
This case (and others) demonstrates the real possibility of a mindscape
that is quite compatible with the model of the two-tiered self-illusion. But it
does not in itself show the two-tiered model to best explain the phenomenon.
There are at least two rival explanations that need ruling out. First, it could be
that the self really does exist as an unconstructed feature of the mind, and that
what has happened in such cases is that the sense of self has become
suspended, while the self has persisted, holus bolus, all along. Not even the
most ardent self-realists would wish to deny that the sense of self gets
suspended during episodes of deep sleep. They would claim that during these
unconscious phases, the self unbrokenly persists, such that upon awakening
one rightly assumes it to have been the very same self that went to sleep. So
why couldn't the self persist during the epileptic automatisms? Second, even if
                                                            
15
 Damasio (1999) himself seems to rule out linguistically the possibility of residual conscious awareness
by routinely defining ‘consciousness’ as ‘consciousness with a sense of self’. For obvious reasons, I resist
this move. 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

the self is an illusion, could it not be the case that both

personal and perspectival ownership are constructed? A bundle theorist need
not have any quibbles with Damasio's way of explaining the constructed
nature of personal ownership. It is just that they would also add unity and
unbrokenness to the mental construction of self, as indeed, Damasio himself
does. There are no constraining assumptions about nirvana to rule out this
possibility. Eliminating each of these rival explanations will thus be necessary
in order to defend the two-tiered illusion of self, such that: (a) personal
ownership is constructed/illusory and (b) perspectival ownership is not.
First, consider the specter of realism about the self. Is there reason to
favor the hypothesis that the self qua personal owner is constructed and
illusory rather than, as it purports to be, unconstructed? The advantage of the
unconstructed-self hypothesis is that it does preserve the appearances. All
things being equal, it is better to preserve appearances than not to: one has to
tell less of a complicated story of how the appearances have the features that
they do. But are all things equal here? Often what lurks behind claims that
reject the veracity of appearance in favor of an illusion hypothesis are
metaphysical assumptions about what items are to be allowed in one's favored
ontology (consider the austerity of the Churchlands' eliminative materialism),
or scientific theories about the workings of the world and its subjects
(consider theories about color-illusion). In the case of the self, both factors are
at play. Damasio, for instance, offers a scientifically motivated account about
how the bounded aspect of self arises (and how it can disappear in pathology),
which leads me to be optimistic that an entirely adequate (even if in part
speculative) explanation for this aspect can be found, without recourse to a
self at all.16 My metaphysical assumption is that if science can adequately
explain the phenomena, using known properties and mechanisms, then it is
better to avoid appealing to metaphysically extravagant alternatives to explain
the data, which would multiply entities beyond what is necessary. Compared
to the scientifically viable components that are needed to explain the
mechanism of identification, the unconstructed self is a metaphysically
extravagant entity.
                                                            
16
 More specifically, Damasio (1999) regards the feelings of desire-driven emotion, which fuel personal
ownership and identification, to be essential in constructing the bounded sense of self. Evidence for this
hypothesis is that all signs of such emotion are entirely absent during episodes of epileptic automatism and
suchlike. I've argued elsewhere (Albahari 2006: ch. 8), that the close ontological relation between desire-
driven emotions and the sense of self is remarkably congruent with the teachings of Buddhism (to let go
emotional investment in desire-satisfaction (Pāli taṇhā, Sanskrit tṛṣṇā ). 
MIRI ALBAHARI

Now to the second worry. Accepting that the personal owner (as a whole)
is constructed, is there reason to suppose that the perspectival owner (a
component of the personal owner) is not? I have only argued, so far, that the
appearance of the perspectival owner is real—that there must seem to be a
unified subject to which the stream is given. But it might turn out that the
perspectival owner, even if operating as the locus of identification, is itself a
mental construct, rather than unconstructed as it purports to be. In such a case
it seems conceivable that its mental construction could occur through some
avenue other than identification, perhaps through the innate action of memory
and the imagination, as Hume claims. In such a case, the constructed synthesis
of unity and unbrokenness (as it applies to witnessing perspective) could
occur below the threshold of what we could ever be aware of, ruling out any
hope of cutting through the illusion of self in the manner that Buddhist
practice thinks possible. The advantage of such a hypothesis parallels that of
the previous argument. It seems more scientifically parsimonious to favor a
theory that appeals to relatively known quantities, such as thoughts,
perceptions, memory, imagination, and the brain, than to quantities that are
metaphysically mysterious. The presence of an intrinsically unified, invariant
and unbroken witness-consciousness that qualifies the perspectival owner
does, by comparison, seem to be more mysterious, not only because it resists
reduction to the more familiar psychological components, but because, unlike
thoughts and perceptions, it is elusive to attentive observation, making it more
resistant to both scientific and introspective methods.
I've argued elsewhere (e.g. Albahari 2009) that the unified perspectival
subject cannot be illusory (as conditions for the possibility of an illusion
taking hold require there to be a perspectival subject). I now wish to present a
different but related argument for the reality of such a (unified) subject, which
focuses on conditions for the possibility of a stream of experience. Putting
aside versions of eliminative materialism (that altogether deny reality to
subjective life),17 advocates of a bundle theory will insist that any impression
of a unified perspectival subject (should they agree to such an impression) is
an illusory projection from the stream of discrete, causally connected, multi-
modal experiences. Why illusory? Being a causal projection from the stream,
the subject will not be unconstructed by the stream, as it purports to be. But
what, then, can it mean for the stream to cause the subject (or its appearance
                                                            
17
 I discuss an eliminative materialist brand of no-self in Albahari (2006: 165–167). 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

thereof)? For A to cause B, A has to in some way exist independently of B

(even if A cannot occur without B occurring at the same time). The stream of
diverse experience must thus in some way exist independently of the
‘perspective’ to which it ‘appears’—a position I find untenable. Reflexive
reductionists are right here to insist that such experiences, by their very nature,
are subjective phenomena, first-personally given. But they stop short of
admitting a real ‘first person’ (the perspectival owner) to which the
experiences are given: the experiences must exist in and of themselves as first-
personally given. Now, while I granted this possibility in the previous section,
it on closer inspection borders on contradictory. For what could ‘first-personal
givenness’ mean, other than ‘given to a (real) first-personal perspective’? (It
cannot mean ‘given to an illusory perspective’!) ‘First-personal givenness’ is
in this respect a success term: the givenness of an experience to a perspective
from which it is observed entails the reality of the observational perspective to
which it is given. Hence the stream of diverse experience, if first-personally
given, cannot ontologically precede (and hence cause the appearance of) the
perspectival owner.
But must such experiences (in order to be experiences) appear to a
synchronically unified perspective? Well, if we consider any object-
experience at a given time, down to the simplest sensation, it will always be
possible to parse it into dimensions of which one is simultaneously aware (for
example, seeing a stretch of sky entails being simultaneously aware
ofdifferent locations of color). The dimensions of the experience must thus be
synchronically present to the single perspective that observes it. Must the
experiences appear to a diachronically unified perspective? Despite
Abhidharma scholars, I cannot comprehend how an experience could present
as literally momentary, disappearing the very moment it arises, for how then
could it be said to exist at all? On this point I agree with Zahavi in his critique
of Dreyfus (this volume): no matter how brief, a lived experience must have
some duration, otherwise it is akin to a mathematical point, a mere
abstraction. So for any stream of experience to occur, it has to occur to a point
of view, and for its content to recognizably exist at all, it must be unified to
that point of view for at least the specious present. In short, there can no more
be a stream of experiences that ontologically precede (and give rise to) the
unified minimal subject(s) to which it appears, than there can be physical
objects that ontologically precede (and give rise to) the space in which they
MIRI ALBAHARI

appear. A unified minimal subject (à la perspectival owner) cannot be caused

by the stream of experience: it is integral to the conscious episode itself.
Does the argument immunize longer-term diachronic unity from illusory
status, where the perspectival owner seems, via witness-consciousness, to
persist unbrokenly and invariantly from one specious present to the next (and
hence, for the duration of each waking episode)? It does not. It is conceptually
possible for there to be a stream of discrete, invariant perspectival owners,
each conditioning the next, such that there appears to be only one unbroken
invariant witness of the stream. Since the situation cannot be resolved by
appealing directly to phenomenology, the most promising strategy may well
be to defend a version of the Experience Condition, which privileges the first-
person perspective. On this principle, clashes between theory and experience
will be resolved in favor of the latter—provided the disputed domain of reality
is restricted to the experiential. In a very interesting passage (which defends
diachronic unity of—and between—the specious presents), Zahavi appeals to
exactly such a principle:

Now, perhaps it could be objected that our experience of diachronic unity

is after all ‘merely’ phenomenological and consequently devoid of any
metaphysical impact. But to think that one can counter the
phenomenological experience of unity over time with the claim that this
unity is illusory and that it doesn't reveal anything about the true
metaphysical nature of consciousness is to make use of the appearance-
reality distinction outside its proper domain of application. This is
especially so, given that the reality in question, rather than being defined
in terms of some spurious mind-independence, should be understood in
terms of experiential reality. For comparison, consider the case of pain.
Who would deny that pain experience is sufficient for the reality of pain?
To put it differently, if one wants to dispute the reality of the diachronic
unity of consciousness, one should do so by means of more convincing
phenomenological descriptions. To argue that the diachronic unity of
consciousness is illusory because it doesn't match any unity on the
subpersonal level is to misunderstand the task at hand.(Zahavi, this
volume, p. 72)18
                                                            
18
Zahavi would insist that the phenomenology does not support a diachronically unified witness-
consciousness. I hope to have shown why it is the correct phenomenological description.
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

While this version of the Experience Condition needs further defense and
elaboration (it should not easily allow for the existence of libertarian free will
or the self, for instance), it goes some way towards establishing that moment-
to-moment, unbroken, invariant witness-consciousness is real. This in turn
goes some way towards establishing that the bundle theory, which bestows
constructed status to such witness-consciousness, is false.
The possibility of nirvana, I argued earlier, implies a two-tiered illusion of
self. In this section, I have argued that (a) the architecture of the mind is
empirically compatible with a model of two-tiered self-illusion, in that it
allows the absence of a sense of personal ownership to be coupled with the
presence of what would seem to be perspectival ownership and (b) the best
explanation for this empirical data is one that supports a two-tiered illusion of
self (as opposed to self-realism or the bundle theory). This provides the
possibility of nirvana with an independent measure of support.

5. Conclusion: The Challenge Ahead

Nirvana is the undoing of the self-illusion, and on the account offered, it will
be a process by which the perspectival owner de-identifies with any idea held
about ‘who one is’. The sense of being a bounded personal owner will be
gradually eroded, freeing the (personally) ownerless consciousness intrinsic to
nirvana. Having established the architecture of mind as potentially suitable for
such de-identification, one might suppose that an easy tasklies ahead in
proving the psychological possibility of nirvana. This is far from true. A major
obstacle pertains to the very case studies that served to buttress my earlier
arguments. In all the cases where Damasio alludes to a sense of personal
ownership being notably absent, the pathology is so severe that the patient is
unable to function in the world. Ownerless consciousness has been
malfunctioning consciousness. These sorts of considerations lead Damasio to
conclude that ‘a state of consciousness which encompasses a sense of self as
conceptualized in this book is indispensable for survival’ (Damasio 1999:
203–204).
A major challenge for those defending the psychological possibility of
nirvana is thus to show how it could be possible for the sense of self to be

                                                                                                                                              
 
MIRI ALBAHARI

eroded in ways that avoid debilitating pathology. A clue may well lie in the
quality of attention that is cultivated during meditation. In all the cases
enlisted by Damasio, where the sense of personal ownership is entirely
suspended, the quality of attention has been abnormally low (e.g. in epileptic
automatism, Alzheimer's disease and akinetic mutism). The high quality of
attention that is cultivated in the meditative states may thus offset the
pathological side-effects, especially as Damasio notes higher-quality attention
to be a reliable indicator of mental acuity (Damasio 1999; 182–183). With the
mounting studies outlining the neuropsychological benefits of meditation, a
measure of empirical support may well, already, be forthcoming.19

References

Albahari, M. (2006), Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of

Self (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan).
——  (2009), ‘Witness-Consciousness: Its Definition, Appearance and
Reality’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 16, 1: 62–84.
Damasio, A. (1999), The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the
Making of Consciousness(London: William Heinemann).
Dennett, D. C. (1991), Consciousness Explained (London: Penguin Books).
Flanagan, O. (1992), Consciousness Reconsidered (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press).
Gupta, B. (1998), The Disinterested Witness: A Fragment of Advaita Vedānta
Phenomenology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press).
Hume, D. (1739–40/1978), A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-
Bigge and P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
James, W. (1890/1981), The Principles of Pyschology: Vol. 1. The Principles
of Psychology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Metzinger, T. (2003), Being No One (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Sayādaw, Mahāsi The Venerable (1994), The Progress of Insight: A Treatise
on SatipaṭṭhānaMeditation, translated from the Pāli with notes by
Nyānaponika Thera (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society).
Strawson, Galen (2008), ‘Episodic Ethics’, in Real Materialism and Other
Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

                                                            
19
 My thanks to Mark Siderits, Evan Thompson, Dan Zahavi and the anonymous reviewers for their critical
feedback on earlier drafts. My thanks to the philosophy department at the University of Calgary for
providing a venue from which to take on the critical feedback during my sabbatical leave. 
 NIRVANA AND OWNERLESS CONSCIOUSNESS

Velleman, J. D. (2002), ‘Identification and Identity’, in Sarah Buss

(ed.), Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry
Frankfurt (Cambridge MA: MIT Press).
Zahavi, D. (2005a), ‘Commentary on: Metzinger. T. Being No-one: The Self-
Model Theory of Subjectivity’, Psyche 11, 5.
——  (2005b), Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person
Perspective (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
 4
Self and Subjectivity: A Middle
Way Approach
GEORGES DREYFUS

1. Introduction

In recent years, the topic of consciousness has drawn increasing attention

among philosophers and cognitive scientists. This renewed interest, at times
described as a ‘consciousness boom’, has come in the wake of a new
willingness to include in the discussion of the mind sciences the subjective
dimensions of mental phenomena, despite the fact that they may be difficult to
conceptualize within the framework of current scientific approaches. Such
willingness has at times been rather nervous and timid, but it has also been
genuine, allowing the field of the mind sciences to consider views of the mind
and practices that had been previously neglected. This is true of meditation,
which is gradually being considered as a respectable object of study rather
than a mysterious phenomenon to be either dismissed or put on a pedestal.
This newly found openness has also started to include Asian views of the
mind, particularly Indian ones.1
This inclusion is obviously welcome but not without difficulties. Indian
views are often couched in a language that makes them not readily accessible
to non-specialists. They also often address questions that are not always easy
to integrate within the context of contemporary discussions. Hence, the
inclusion of traditional Indian views about the mind within the new mind
sciences is not an easy or immediate task. It requires a complex process of
translation of the relevant aspects of the Indian tradition on the part of
                                                            
1
 For an excellent discussion of the scientific study of meditation, see Lutz, Dunne, and Davidson (2007:
499–554). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

scholars of that tradition, a process that involves not just the philological
exploration of new sources, but also the development of the philosophical
concepts necessary to connect this old tradition to contemporary concerns.
This process has started recently2 but has still some way to go before we can
say with confidence that the Indian views about the mind and consciousness
have been well understood and integrated into the contemporary discussions.
The goal of this essay3 is to contribute to this process by attempting to
relate some of the Buddhist views to contemporary discussions concerning
consciousness. It should be clear, however, that in dealing with this topic I
have no pretension to provide ‘the Buddhist view of consciousness’.
Buddhism is a plural tradition that has evolved over centuries to include a
large variety of views about the mind. Hence, there is no one view that can
ever hope to qualify as ‘the Buddhist view of consciousness’. Moreover, the
exploration of a difficult concept such as consciousness should not be thought
of as a matter that can be completed easily. Buddhist traditions contain a
wealth of material relevant to the mental, but such wealth is not always
obvious. Hence, the inclusion of Buddhist views of consciousness should be
thought of as an ongoing process of translation in which the richness of the
Buddhist tradition is gradually connected to contemporary discussions rather
than as a finished product.
In discussing consciousness within the Buddhist context, it is difficult to
avoid broaching another very large topic, that of the self. Buddhism is often
presented in the contemporary philosophical literature as advocating a
thorough denial of the reality of the self akin to the bundle theory of the
person attributed to Locke, Hume, and Parfit. This no-self view of the person
is also at times understood to entail not just the thorough denial of the reality
of any self-entity, but also to enable us to dispense with notions such as
consciousness, experience, and subjectivity. In this essay, I argue that,
although the bundle theory of the person has support within the Buddhist
tradition, it is not as universally admitted as is often assumed, and certainly
does not represent ‘the Buddhist view of the person’. For one, a significant
minority of Buddhist Indian thinkers reject altogether the no-self view,

                                                            
2
 See, for example, Waldron (2002) and Dreyfus and Thompson (2007). 
3
 I would like to thank all the people who have helped me in sorting these difficult ideas. I cannot mention
all of them, but particular thanks are due to Joseph Cruz, Evan Thompson, Mark Siderits, John Dunne, Miri
Albahari, Jeffrey Hopkins, Gerald Hess, Jay Garfield, Robert Roeser, and many others, for their useful
comments and feedback. 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

advocating a position according to which the self exists as a process based on,
but not reducible to, the body–mind complex (Priestly, nd.). But even among
the majority of thinkers who rally to the dominant no-self standpoint, there are
substantial differences about the ways in which the person is conceptualized
within a no-self paradigm. This seems particularly true of the Yogācāra
tradition, which offers an account of the person as being selfless and yet
centered around the notion of reflexive subjectivity, a view that goes well
beyond the bundle theory of the person and stands in stark contrast with the
elimination of notions such as consciousness and experience, as I show here.
In arguing for what I believe is a more defensible Buddhist view of
consciousness and the person than is often presented in the secondary
literature, I offer a philosophical reconstruction, rather than an historically
accurate rendering of what the original texts actually said. Hence, I feel free to
mine Indian and Tibetan sources without being bound to adopt all the views
that these texts advocate. For example, I often rely on the Abhidharma,
particularly its Yogācāra version, and its Tibetan offshoots, which I believe
contain a wealth of psychological and philosophical insights relevant to
contemporary concerns but not yet fully exploited. But in arguing for a
Yogācāra-inspired view of the person and consciousness I do not feel
compelled to take a stance on the often debated question of whether the
Yogācāra view entails a form of idealism or not.4 My concerns here are quite
different, being limited to cognitive and phenomenological considerations,
which are not always usefully connected to metaphysical or ontological
questions.
In the following pages, I discuss the nature of the person in Buddhist
philosophy within a phenomenologically informed perspective that examines
the sense that we have of ourselves rather than focusing on purely ontological
considerations. I rest my analysis on the distinction between self and
subjectivity, arguing that we need a Buddhist account of the latter, not as an
objective self-entity, but as a process of self-awareness. In making my case, I
address the phenomenological tradition and its views of subjectivity,
particularly through the work of Dan Zahavi, who has shown the contributions
that phenomenology can make to an account of consciousness within the
context of contemporary cognitive science and analytical philosophy. I also

                                                            
4
 This topic has been the focus of an enormous literature that cannot be listed here. For two interesting
recent contributions, see Lusthaus (2002) and Hopkins (2002). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

examine Miri Albahari's important delineation of a principled distinction

between subjectivity and self as a basis for the elaboration of an account of
subjectivity within a no-self paradigm. Like Zahavi and Albahari, I do not
limit my discussion to purely philosophical or doctrinal considerations, but
attempt to connect my presentation to some of the contemporary
neuroscientific discussions of the self, particularly those of Antonio Damasio.
In the second part of my presentation, I explore some of the resources that the
Buddhist tradition, particularly the Yogācāra Abhidharma, offers for the
conceptualization of subjectivity. There I show the contributions that often
misunderstood Yogācāra doctrines, such as that of the basic consciousness,
can make to our understanding of subjectivity. In the process I take issue with
Albahari's view of a transcendent subject, arguing that we need to find ways
to explain subjectivity as a feature of ordinary cognitive processes, rather than
as a supramundane nibbānic consciousness. I also show how this Yogācāra
view of a basic consciousness relates to contemporary questions concerning
the holistic nature of consciousness, questions addressed by thinkers such as
John Searle and others. In this way, I show how a Buddhist view informed by
contemporary phenomenology can steer a middle course between the
reductionist rejection of subjectivity and the reificatory acceptance of a self-
entity. I conclude with a few remarks on the centrality of the notion of
experience in a Buddhist account of consciousness and the person, arguing
that its repudiation by Dennett-inspired scholars such as Sharf is an obstacle to
our understanding of the full range of Buddhist views.

2. A Yogācāra-Inspired View of Consciousness

The basics of the Buddhist conception of the mind I defend here derive from
the Abhidharma tradition. Briefly, the object of the Abhidharma is to analyze
the realm of sentient experience and the world given in such experience, in a
language that undermines the postulation of an enduring unified subject. The
Abhidharma analyzes experience into its basic elements (dharmas), listing and
grouping them into the appropriate categories. In this project, the Abhidharma
is following the central tenets of Buddhist philosophy, the twin ideas of non-
substantiality and dependent origination. On this view, the phenomena given
in experiences are not unitary and stable substances, but complex and
ephemeral formations of basic events arising within complex causal nexuses.
This is particularly true of the person, who is not a substantial self but a
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

construct that comes to be only in dependence on complex configurations of

multiple mental and material events (the aggregates).
This no-self view has important consequences for understanding the
cognitive process, which unfolds not through the control of a cognitive
executive, but on the basis of the interaction of competing factors, whose
strength varies according to circumstances.5 There is no enduring
experiencing subject, inner controller, or homunculus that manages or
observes the cognitive process. Rather, the moments of awareness exercise all
the functions necessary to cognition and constitute it. Each moment of
awareness comes to be in dependence on various conditions (preceding
moments of awareness, object, sensory basis, etc.). Having arisen, it performs
its function and dissolves, giving rise to the next moment of awareness, thus
forming a stream of consciousness or continuum (santāna, rgyud) not unlike
James' stream of thought or Husserl's mental flux. Hence, for the Abhidharma,
the mind is not an entity or a substance. It is not a thing, a kind of mechanism
that produces thoughts, memories, or perceptions, but a constantly changing
process, a continuum of rising and ceasing complex and multi-layered mental
events, which are, at least indirectly, phenomenologically available.6
This way of thinking about the mental is relevant to contemporary
discussions about the ontology of the mind. Although Buddhism is often
presented (and rightly so) as advocating a kind of event dualism,7 which
supports a worldview in which we undergo a multiplicity of lives, it should be
noted that the Abhidharma view of the mind can be taken in an ontologically
neutral way, compatible with a number of contemporary views of the mind.
This is so because the central concern of the Abhidharma analysis of the
mental is a description of the complexity of the components of mental
processes as they are phenomenologically available, not an analysis of the
ontological basis of mental processes, a basis that is not readily available to
the kind of analysis central to its project.
                                                            
5
 This point is well made by Bodhi (2000: 158, 165). It should be clear that this denial of the existence of a
central unit concerns the phenomenology of consciousness, not its ontological basis (sub-personal brain
states), about which Buddhist analysis of consciousness has little to say. 
6
 As will become clear below, we need to distinguish between what is phenomenologically available and
what is introspectable. Many cognitive processes such as what is happening in deep sleep are below the
threshold of ordinary consciousness and hence unavailable to introspection, but inasmuch as they mark our
experiences they are phenomenologically available, albeit indirectly. 
7
 For a presentation of a form of Buddhist dualism, see Jackson (1993). It should be clear, however, that
Buddhist dualism differs from Cartesian dualism in that it holds that there are two types of events, not two
types of substance. Hence, it may be more amenable to being naturalized. 
GEORGES DREYFUS

I will defend a view of the mind that embraces this perspective, limiting
myself to the discovery of the phenomenology of mental states and leaving
ontological questions to the side. It is in this context that I understand the
distinction that most Ābhidharmikas draw between the real components of the
mind–body complex and the fictional, or illusory, self. Whereas traditional
Ābhidharmikas hold this distinction to have some ontological implications
and to provide the basis for an event dualism, I limit its purview to the
phenomenological domain. The cognitive processes taken here to be real are
so taken because they are irreducible to more basic phenomenologically
available components, not because they are taken to be the ultimate building
blocks of the universe, for if we were to consider their ontology we would
have to face the difficult question of their relation to the domain of sub-
personal brain states.8
For the Abhidharma, the mind is composed, we said, of a series of mental
states. Each state can be conceptualized as being a moment of awareness
(citta, sems) endowed with various characteristics, the mental factors
(caitesika, sems byung). Awareness, which is also described as consciousness
(vijñāna, rnam shes), is primary, in that it is aware of the object and cognizes
it, whereas mental factors qualify this awareness and determine it as being
pleasant or unpleasant, focused or unfocused, calm or agitated, positive or
negative, etc. Vasubandhu describes consciousness (i.e. awareness) as the
‘apprehension of each object’.9 Similarly, a basic Theravāda Abhidharma
manual defines it as ‘nothing other than the process of cognizing the object’
(Bodhi, 2000:27). Most Buddhist thinkers, both inside and outside of the
Abhidharma tradition, agree on this description of the mental as consisting of
moments of awareness with various characteristics. What they disagree about
is the analysis of the way in which consciousness cognizes its object.
Many Abhidharma thinkers (belonging to various schools such as
Vaibhāṣika, Theravāda, etc.) argue that consciousness simply consists of a
naked encounter with reality in which the mind grasps the object itself. These
thinkers do not posit any appearance as an intentional object or cognitive
mediator over and above the object itself. Others, at times described as
belonging to the Sautrāntika or the Yogācāra traditions, have argued that this
idea of a bare encounter with reality does not explain the nature of

                                                            
8
 For a brilliant, but inconclusive, take on this topic, see Kim (1998). 
9
 Poussin (1971: I. 30). Translation from the French is mine. 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

cognition.10 For what does it mean for the mind to apprehend an object? Either
apprehension is just a metaphor (that of physical grasping) for a process in
need of further clarification, or it is a hopelessly naive view deprived of
explanatory power. According to these thinkers, consciousness does not grasp
its object directly, but through the disclosure of its appearance. The object
does not appear directly or nakedly to consciousness but through the
phenomenal form (ākāra, rnam pa, literally ‘aspect’) it gives rise to in the
cognitive process, its manifestation within the field of
11
consciousness. Awareness of the object is then the beholding by
consciousness itself of the phenomenal form of the object. The implication of
this view is that consciousness is intrinsically self-aware.
Dignāga articulated this view of consciousness through the doctrine of
self-cognition (svasaṃvedana). Dharmakīrti developed this view, presenting
self-cognition as a kind of apperception, the sense that we have of being able
to register our mental states as being our own.12 This self-awareness is neither
introspective nor reflective, for it does not take inner mental states as its
objects. Rather, it is the self-specifying function of every mental episode that
brings about a non-thematic awareness of mental states as our own so that the
person automatically knows whose experiences he or she is experiencing. This
self-awareness is pre-reflective, providing the basis for introspection, the
paying attention to some of our mental states. Hence, the reflexivity that is at
play here does not require a separate cognition but is the necessary
consequence of the analysis of consciousness as the beholding of a
phenomenal form within the field of consciousness.13

                                                            
10
 These two ways of understanding consciousness as being first and foremost object-directed or reflexive
represent two distinct ways of conceptualizing consciousness in Indian philosophy. The Nyāya school of
brahmanical realism, for example, argues that consciousness first and foremost illuminates another object,
and that self-awareness is necessarily reflective, whereas the idealist Vedānta holds that consciousness is
self-luminous (svayamprakāṣa), in that it is directly aware of itself and only indirectly aware of the object.
See Ram-Prasad (2007), as well as this volume. 
11
 Chim Jampeyang (1989: 126–127). A similar view is found in Sazang Mati Penchen (n.d), 32–33. This
discussion follows Tibetan doxographical categories. For a modern scholarly examination of these
categories, see Mimaki (1979). For a critique of these categories, see Cabezon (1990: 7–26). 
12
 For a discussion of this important doctrine, see Dreyfus (1997: chs. 19 and 25). For a discussion of
earlier views on self-cognition, see Yao (2005). 
13
There are here obvious parallels with the phenomenological view of consciousness as involving a pre-
reflective self-awareness as articulated by Husserl and Sartre. For an excellent discussion of these views
within a perspective informed by contemporary cognitive sciences and analytic philosophy of mind, see
Zahavi (2005).
GEORGES DREYFUS

This explanation of consciousness as the experiencing of the form of the

object within the field of consciousness may not provide, however, the final
word in the Yogācāra tradition, for it already presupposes a basic duality
between consciousness as the experienced object (grāhyākāra, i.e.
apprehended aspect), and consciousness as the experiencing (grāhakākāra, i.e.
apprehending aspect) of that object. This duality is the basis for the ordinary
ways in which we conceptualize our experience of external objects as being
directly available to us, while being radically separated from our awareness.
But this view is mistaken, for consciousness is neither cut off from reality nor
is it in immediate contact with it. Rather, consciousness proceeds by
constructing the object that it perceives. We have no access to reality outside
of our mental constructions, and any reality that seems given to us
immediately as clearly distinct from our mental life is in fact irremediably
entangled with this mental life, its predispositions, expectations, distortions,
etc.14
Several Buddhist meditative traditions refer to the experience of a non-
dual mode of cognition in which consciousness appears as a luminous self-
presencing background against which ephemeral cognitive episodes take
place, much like clouds drifting away against the blue sky. The Tibetan
Nyingma tradition of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen), for example,
presents a view of awareness as being limpid and luminous while self-aware.
Awareness is described as shining through in between thoughts, much like the
sky appears in between clouds. A description of how the practitioner is
introduced to such deep states explains:

When it [awareness] stares at itself, with this observation there is a vividness in

which nothing is seen. This awareness is direct, naked, vivid, unestablished,
empty, limpid luminosity, unique, non-dual clarity and emptiness. It is not
permanent, but unestablished. It is not nihilistic but radiantly vivid. It is not one,
but manifoldly aware and clear. It is not manifold but indivisibly of one taste. It is
none other than this very self-awareness.15

                                                            
14
 This is not unlike Husserl's description of the natural attitude in which we assume that the world of
ordinary objects is given immediately to us and exists simply out there for us, at hand. See Welton (1999:
60). 
15
 Karma Chagme (1998: 108). A critical study of the Nyingma views of the mind, with a view of its
connection to the Yogācāra tradition, seems to be of obvious interest and yet remains to be written. There
are also interesting parallels within the Theravāda tradition. See Collins (1982: 246–47). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

These meditative instructions offer the glimpse of an experience of

awareness as being clear and without content, while being self-aware. This is
also described as ‘awareness as such’ (sems nyid), the state in which
awareness experiences itself without the distortions imposed by the dualistic
structure through which we usually deal with reality. In this state,
consciousness appears as empty since it is free from any content, but it is not
nothing either since it is luminous, having a basic self-presencing or
reflexivity that is irreducible to the usual subject-object structures of our
ordinary conception of experience. This non-dual state seems to correspond, at
least partly, to how many Yogācārins understand consciousness at its deepest
level, that is, as being free from dualistic distortions and experiencing itself
directly. Although we think of experience as having a dual structure, in reality
the duality is more a result of how we interpret experience than an accurate
reflection of its nature. In its most basic state, consciousness does not exist
apart from its object. Both subject and object forms are superimposed on a
consciousness that is but a single field of awareness.
This description of a non-dual awareness is important to understanding
the view of subjectivity delineated here, but it also creates a challenge for
philosophical analysis. In this view, consciousness is non-dual, and hence
beyond the reach of conceptualization. It may be experienced directly or
evoked indirectly by helpful metaphors and instructions on how to reach such
a state, but it cannot be described. Hence, we may find it difficult to articulate
a view of subjectivity based solely on this level of analysis. To do so, we may
want to move a notch down to a level of analysis at which non-dual awareness
appears in its dualistic manifestations. This is the level of analysis at which
consciousness is understood to disclose its phenomenal form by assuming the
form of the object. In doing so, awareness also reveals itself in its
apprehending aspect.16 This subject-object duality helps us understand the
nature of subjectivity, and to distinguish it from the further and coarser
distortion of conceiving of ourselves as enduring self-entities. Hence, in the
following pages, I will assume this level of analysis of ordinary subjectivity as
                                                            
16
 In Dharmakīrti's tradition, these two levels of analysis are at times referred to as False Aspectarian
(alīkārāvāda, rnam dzun pa) and True Aspectarian (satyakārāvāda, rnam bden pa). In the first perspective,
consciousness is conceived as being non-dual in its nature, the phenomenal form or aspect being merely
superimposed on a purely reflexive awareness. In the second perspective, the phenomenal form is also
taken to be a distortion of a non-dual awareness, but this distortion is understood to have some basis in the
nature of consciousness. Here I will be following the second perspective, although I am also suggesting that
both can be seen as complementary, providing different levels of analysis, rather than antagonistic views.
For a discussion of these two views, see Dreyfus (1997: ch. 27). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

consisting of the experiencing of an object as given to awareness, and argue

that we can distinguish it from a coarser level of distortion at which we reify
subjectivity as being a bounded self.
The upshot of this discussion is that, for the Yogācāra, consciousness is
not merely intentional (the fact that it is about something) but phenomenal and
hence reflexive. Consciousness is not just the apprehension of an object, it is
also the disclosing of the mode of appearance of that object to a subjectivity
that experiences that object in particular ways, while being pre-reflectively
aware of its experience. Hence, consciousness is best thought of as a
continuum of self-aware experiences of various phenomenal qualities (a
feeling of pain, a visual impression, thoughts, wants, etc.), so that it makes
sense, in Thomas Nagel's words, to talk about what it is like for the subject to
undergo this or that experience when he or she apprehends an object
(Nagel 1974).
Some contemporary philosophers of mind describe these phenomenal
qualities as qualia, the experiential qualities of the apprehension of
objects.17 Insofar as this term refers to the phenomenological data intrinsic to
consciousness, its use does not raise any special problem. There is, however, a
great danger of reifying consciousness and making it into the introspection of
a succession of private, ineffable, and transparent entities that parade within
the Cartesian theater of our mind and can be known with clarity and certainty
by a witness.18 This understanding of the mind and of the nature of qualia is
deeply alien to the account suggested here. For one thing, the theater metaphor
suggests that our mental life is composed of a succession of clearly delineated
experiential states, such as images or feelings of pain in the same way that a
show consists of a series of scenes. But clearly delineated states hardly
exhaust the range of phenomenological data.19 There are numerous aspects of
our mental life, such as diffuse feelings, inchoate emotions, vague
recognitions, etc., that do not conform to such a model and that are
nevertheless elements of consciousness. Moreover, the theater metaphor
suggests that consciousness is a succession of clearly delineated states grasped
by introspection. But this cannot be right. The phenomenal aspect of
consciousness cannot be reduced to what is apprehended by introspection, for
                                                            
17
For a reader on the various contemporary views within the philosophy of mind, see Chalmers(2002).

18
 This colorful expression is due to Dennett (1991). 
19
 This point is made forcefully and cogently by Petitot, Varela, Pachoud, and Roy (1999: 11). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

we are able to introspect only a fraction of what we experience pre-

reflectively. The assertion of the phenomenal nature of consciousness entails
that consciousness is reflexive, but not that its content can be reduced to
introspectable mental states. Consciousness is a constantly changing, multi-
layered, deep and extraordinarily complex flux, which can be penetrated only
gradually and partially, as will become clear below. Finally and more
importantly, the theater metaphor is wrong-headed in that it is inherently
dualist, positing a distinction between the observer and the observed, a view
profoundly antithetical to the no-self position central to my account.
Consciousness is not a feature dualistically and retrospectively attributed to
mental states by a witness, but is an inherent feature of mental states inasmuch
as they are self-specified.
The difference between the view argued for here and the Cartesian view
of consciousness as a transparent self that has privileged access to its own
content becomes clear when we realize that, in this view, our ordinary sense
of what it is to be conscious is to a very large extent a grand illusion.20 At one
level, it distorts reality by creating an illusion of stability in a constantly
changing world, as suggested by various phenomena such as change
blindness, attentional blink, etc. (Palmer 1999: 537–539). The illusion of
stability does not just concern the objects of our experience but the ways in
which we conceive of ourselves as stable self-entities appropriating these
objects, as we will see shortly. It also concerns the very subject-object
structure that serves as the basis of our ordinary experience, the sense that we
have of an immediately given and yet fully separated objective reality. It is on
this basis that we conceive of a world in which we are stable selves, who
encounter other stable entities.
It should also be clear, however, that this view of conscious experience as
non-dual and distorted is quite different from the view of those who seek the
elimination of any subjective notion, holding that consciousness is completely
illusory, being fully reducible to the subject's beliefs about his or her
experiences, as I take Dennett to argue for.21 From the Buddhist perspective

                                                            
20
 I am using Cartesianism as defined by O. Flanagan, that is, as the view that ‘each person is in an
epistemically privileged position with respect to the content of his or her mind…’ (1999: 66). Whether this
actually corresponds to Descartes' own position is a different matter. 
21
 For thoughtful discussions of Dennett's views on experience, see the special issue ofPhenomenology and
Cognitive Sciences 6 (2007). For a view of the controversy surrounding the issue of whether our sense that
experiences, particularly visual ones, have a rich phenomenological content is a grand illusion or not, see
the special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies 9.5–6 (2002). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

articulated here, our mistake is not to think that things appear to us, but to
assent to the ways things appear to us and thus take for real our own mental
creations. The view articulated here aims for a middle ground that steers clear
of two extreme positions. By denying the transparency of consciousness, I
seek to avoid the extreme of reification, here the Cartesian assertion of a
transparent subject able to know with certainty ideas, feelings, and emotions.
By asserting that there is a phenomenological asymmetry between first- and
third-person perspectives and by taking seriously the fact of being appeared
to, I seek to escape from the other extreme, the complete elimination of any
notion of subjective experience. Both extremes short-change the cognitive
process and provide overly simplistic models of consciousness that fail to
account for its complexities, as will become clear below.22
This view of consciousness as reflexive is not, however, without
important questions concerning the doctrine of no-self. For if consciousness
entails self-awareness, does it not follow that there is a unified subject, and
hence a self that is not just a convenient label used to designate a bunch of
aggregates? And if this is so, doesn't this contradict the cornerstone of most
Buddhist philosophy, the unambiguous repudiation of the self? In the
following pages I respond to these questions by making an important
distinction between subjectivity and self. I argue that this distinction can
provide a strong basis for a defense of the no-self position, while giving
ordinary subjectivity its due place within the Buddhist philosophy of the
person.

3. Consciousness, Subjectivity and the Self

This question of the connection between the notions of consciousness and self
is obviously important for Buddhist philosophy, both in its classical
formulations and in the attempts that some of us are engaged in to address
contemporary discussions from a Buddhist perspective. It also parallels
important discussions within the Western philosophical tradition where in the
last few years the topic of the self has received renewed attention. A number
of thinkers, such as Parfit, Dennett, Strawson, Metzinger, etc., have argued for
                                                            
22
 It should be said, however, that the kind of rich phenomenological discussions of meditative experiences
that one would expect in a tradition like Buddhism, where meditation is supposed to play a central role,
have yet to be produced, or if they exist, analyzed by Western scholars at great length. There are here and
there interesting suggestions, but as far as I know, the range of descriptive accounts available is still very
limited. 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

a radical rejection of the self, sometimes with explicit reference to Buddhist

views. Within the phenomenological tradition, Sartre, in his wonderful La
Transcendence de l'ego, holds a similar perspective, arguing that the ego is
reflectively constructed on the basis of the self-aware flow of consciousness.
Other thinkers have rejected this no-self perspective. Dan Zahavi, for
example, argues in his excellent Selfhood and Subjectivity that the
phenomenological view of consciousness as implying a pre-reflective
awareness makes it impossible to do without some notion of self. For Zahavi,
if I understand him correctly, the self is based on a real structure of invariance
that provides the act-transcendent and moment-transcendent identity-pole
necessary to a coherent account of subjectivity. Subjectivity entails first-
person self-givenness, the fact that when the subject has an experience, there
is no doubt about who is having the experience. There may be vast
uncertainties concerning the modalities and content of my experience (Was
my experience pleasant or neutral? Did I really see or did I merely imagine?
Did I taste chocolate or artificial flavoring, etc.), but there is no room to doubt
whether it is I or somebody else who had the experience. As Zahavi puts it,
‘When I undergo an experience, I cannot be in doubt about who the subject of
that experience is’ (Zahavi 2005: 124). But for Zahavi first-person self-
givenness is not sufficient for subjective experience, which requires a pole of
invariance in relation to which I can decide that the experience is mine.
Zahavi explains:

The self-givenness of a single experience is a necessary, but not a sufficient,

condition for this type of self-awareness to occur. The latter entails more than a
simple and immediate self-awareness; it also entails a difference or a distance that
is bridged, that is, it involves a synthesis. This is so because the self cannot be
given as an act-transcendent identity in a single experience. It is only by
comparing several experiences that we encounter something that retains its
identity through changing circumstances. (Zahavi 2005: 131)

For Zahavi, subjectivity implies unity. I am not just conscious of various

experiences causally connected. Rather, I am conscious of experiences as
happening to a single self. This singularity is not just synchronic (something
to which I will come back), but diachronic as well. As a subject of experience,
I am aware of myself as having experiences across temporal distance. Hence,
when I recall an experience, I am not just projecting unity over the past and
GEORGES DREYFUS

the present subjects but I am becoming aware of what I, the unified self,
experienced earlier.
This phenomenological defense of the self represents an important
challenge for the kind of Buddhist view of consciousness articulated here, and
zeroes in on what I take to be the central issue in the debate between
proponents of the self and their adversaries, namely, the question of
diachronic unity. For if consciousness is pre-reflectively self-aware, that is, if
(ordinary) experiences are given as having an intrinsic mineness, does it not
follow that there must be an I in relation to whom experiences can be said to
be mine? And if this is so, does this not show that there exists a self that
transcends the present moment? This challenge also represents a welcome
opportunity to elaborate a richer Buddhist view of the person, a view that
accounts, not just for the ontological rejection of a self entity, but also
includes within the purview of the Buddhist philosophy of the person the
experiential dimensions that are fundamental to a number of practices, and
without which sense cannot be made of many aspects of the Buddhist
tradition.
To respond to Zahavi's arguments it may be useful to include in the
conversation Miri Albahari's recent contribution to the Buddhist philosophy of
the person. In her insightful and important work, Albahari (2006) argues, if I
understand her correctly, that an adequate view of the person within the
context of Buddhist philosophy requires a crucial distinction between the self
and the subject. Whereas the former is an illusion to be deconstructed, the
latter is quite real. For Albahari, the subject is characterized by its ability to
witness. She says:

The modus operandi of a subject seems, to put the point broadly, to be its realized
capacity to observe, know, witness and be consciously aware. I shall use the term
‘witnessing’ (or ‘witnessing consciousness’) to cover all these modes of
apprehension, but when I do so I am to be taken as talking only about the
phenomenal cases of such apprehension. By ‘phenomenal’ I mean that there is
something it is like to be undergoing the apprehension…Minimally construed,
witnessing can be described as the broadest mode of phenomenal apprehending,
subsuming all species of conscious experiencing, perceiving, thinking and
introspecting, whether these apprehendings are attentive or inattentive, human or
non-human. (Albahari 2006: 7–8)
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

Albahari's arguments seem to dovetail with the phenomenological view of

consciousness sketched above. When I undergo an experience, this experience
is not just an element in a complex impersonal flux. Rather, it is given as mine
immediately, and without any possibility of mistake. This self-givenness
seems to correspond to what Albahari means by the notion of subject and its
ability to witness all species of conscious experiences. Consciousness is the
ability to be aware of one's experiences immediately.
For Albahari, the subject is to be distinguished sharply from the self,
which is a result of the mistaken assumption that the subject is a self.23 Such
illusion is based on a mechanism of identification through which the subject is
identified with the aggregates. For example, when I feel really healthy, I
identify with the body. It is as if the subject becomes fused with the body felt
as healthy. At other times I identify with my mind, deluding myself into
thinking ‘I am really smart’. In this way, the subject is identified as being
more than a mere witness, as being a bounded entity that endures over time
through the appropriation of various parts of the body-mind complex.
Albahari gives this definition of the self:

A self is defined as a bounded, happiness-seeking/duḥkha-avoiding (witnessing)

subject that is a personal owner and controlling agent, and which is unified and
unconstructed, with unbroken and invariable presence from one moment to the
next, as well as with longer-term endurance and invariability. (Albahari 2006: 73)

For Albahari, the self is conceived by attributing to the subject characteristics

that it does not have, particularly those of being bounded, being a personal
owner and a controlling agent. The self arises out of an identification of the
subject as being the personal owner of a particular aspect of the body–mind
complex. In our example of feeling healthy, it is the body that provides a
reflexive lens through which the subject is seen. By identifying the subject in
this way, this filter creates a sense of boundedness. I am not just a subject
witnessing the health of the body, I am defined and delimited by this healthy

                                                            
23
 Albahari (2006: 51) states: ‘On the Buddhist position, we are to understand that the witnessing subject
makes the (deeply mistaken) assumption of being a self through its very act of assuming various khandās.’ I
think that this formulation, which seems to imply that the witnessing consciousness mistakes itself for a
self, is problematic. It seems that if the subject is unconditioned and unbroken in its presence, as Alabhari
argues, it cannot be mistaken and hence cannot make wrong assumptions. Rather, it seems that what needs
to be said is that other mental states (desire, ignorance) take the subject to be a self. This is in fact the
Yogācāra view, as I will show below. 
GEORGES DREYFUS

body. This sense of boundedness creates a boundary between what is thus

identified and everything else. In this way a fundamental bifurcation is created
within my cognitive universe between what is on the side of the self and of the
other, that is, everything else. This boundary is in reality quite fluid. At
various times I identify with different aspects of the body–mind complex. I
may even identify with my favorite sports team. But I am usually not aware of
this fluidity, for when I identify with this or that aspect of my personality, I
conceive of myself as a self-evident and rigidly delineated entity, firmly
separated from the rest of the world. This rigid sense of separation also entails
a quality of specialness. The separation that is made between I and the rest of
the world is loaded with extremely powerful emotions. I am not just different
from the rest of the world but I am first and foremost extremely special, the
one and only one who is more important than anything or anybody else.
Finally, I am also the autonomous agent who is in charge of the mind–body
complex and its actions. I am the seat of free will, the entity that freely
decides and initiates all my movements. I am the author of what I do, in
control of my actions. (Albahari 2006: 73)
I think that Albahari's discussion is extremely insightful and makes a
significant contribution to Buddhist philosophy by delineating more precisely
what it is that most Buddhist philosophers reject when they deny the self. This
is important, for as several Tibetan Buddhist thinkers have argued,24 it is hard
to understand the no-self standpoint without identifying what the self is that is
being rejected. I believe that the self that is the target of many traditional
Buddhist arguments corresponds quite closely to Albahari's description. For
example, the seventeenth-century Geluk thinker Jamyang Zhaypa explicitly
compares the relation of the self to the aggregates, to that between head
merchant and the merchants whom he leads.25 Like the head merchant who
commands the other merchants but is also one of them, the self is
misconceived as being in charge of the aggregates, though it does not appear
separately from them. This metaphor of the self as the boss in charge of the

                                                            
24
 Tsongkhapa is one of the most famous Buddhist thinkers to have argued that identifying the self to be
refuted is an important step in the process of insight. In fact, his whole approach to the no-self doctrine is
based on the drawing of an explicit distinction between the self that is to be refuted and the self that exists
conventionally. See Tsongkhapa (2002: III.126). 
25
 For Jamyang Zhaypa, this example illustrates the self rejected by most Buddhist schools (what he calls
the coarse object of refutation), not the most subtle form of self-delusion. Like Tsongkhapa, Jamyang
Zhayba believes that there is a more subtle level of misconception of the self that is the special target of
Prāsaṅgika reasonings. See Hopkins (2003: 651, fn. B); Lopez (2006: 170). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

mind-body complex, which is meant to illustrate how we ordinarily

misconceive of the self (not how the self exists), corresponds to the sense of
self that is rejected in a number of canonical sources. For example, the
Buddha is presented as offering this argument in the Saṃyutta Nikāya (iii.66–
67):

Body is not a self. If body were a self then it might be that it would not lead to
sickness; then it might be possible to say, ‘Let my body be like this, let my body
not be like this’. But since body is not a self, so it leads to sickness, and it is not
possible to say, ‘Let my body be like this, let my body not be like this’.
(Gethin 1998: 136)

This argument from the lack of control, as well as the others that cannot
be examined here,26 quite clearly points to a sense of the self as defined by its
being in control of the aggregates, being an agent in charge of acting, as well
as being an enduring entity clearly separated from the rest of the world and
worthy of special concern. It is this sense of bounded self closely connected to
our sense of agency that is the target of Buddhist arguments, which seek to
expose its illusory nature.
Thus, it seems that we have here the basis for a Buddhist response to
Zahavi's challenge. This response rests on the distinction between two senses
of who we are: the subject, or, rather subjectivity, that is, the continuum of
momentary mental states with their first-personal self-givenness, which are
central to being a person (more on this shortly), and the self, which is an
illusory reification of subjectivity as being a bounded agent enduring through
time, rather than a complex flow of fleeting self-specified experiences. Hence,
the perceptions, thoughts, and memories that arise within the continuum of my
mind are not impersonal. They are clearly mine in the sense of there being no
possible doubt about who is the subject of these experiences. But this does not
entail that there is an act-transcendent pole of identity, an entity that endures
before and after the moment of experience, in relation to which I can establish
that these experiences are mine, for all that there is a succession of self-aware
subjective states.

                                                            
26
The Pali Canon presents two other arguments. The first argues against a permanent self, whereas the
second argues against the self from mereological considerations. See Collins (1982: 97–103).
GEORGES DREYFUS

We may wonder, however, about the situation in which I recall past

memories. When I remember my being a schoolboy in Switzerland, it seems
that I, the remembering person, am the same person as the one who is being
remembered. Is this an illusion? Or is Zahavi right to argue that the only
possible way to make sense of this experience is to posit a moment-
transcendent structure in relation to which the identity of the remembering
person and remembered person can be established? The answer of the
proponents of the no-self position is, I believe, quite clear. The sense of
diachronic unity of the self is at the heart of the illusion of the self, which in
many respects arises from blindness to change. There is no entity that endures
from my childhood in Switzerland to my being a grown-up in North America.
Does this mean that we can say that the person who is remembering is
different from the one who is being remembered? Buddhist thinkers have
often balked at this last point, asserting that the remembering and the
remembered persons are neither different nor the same.27 What do they mean
by this rather enigmatic statement? Should we not bite the bullet and state
quite clearly that the remembering and the remembered persons are different?
This is where I think it is important to keep in mind the importance of the
first person self-givenness at the heart of the Buddhist notion of person
articulated here. Although in some sense the remembering person is different
from the one who is being remembered, this difference is not the same as the
one that separates me from other people. When I remember being a child in
Switzerland, I am not just recalling the circumstances in which I used to live,
but I am also remembering these circumstances as being given to me in the
first person mode. To put it slightly differently, when I remember my
childhood in Switzerland, I am not just remembering the object of my past
experience, but also the subjective states that underwent this past experience.
Although these mental states are not the same as the states that remember,
they both share a similar first-person self-givenness, a commonality that is not
being shared with anybody else. The sense of unity that underlies my memory
arises out of the fact that when I remember my past experiences I do not just
                                                            
27
 For example, Candrakīrti states that ‘because Maitreya and Upagupta are different people, their
constituent factors cannot be included in the same continuum’ (Huntington 1989: 164). Classically, the
Buddhist view that the remembered and the remembering persons are neither different nor the same is
interpreted as deriving from the negation of the self. Since there is no self, it makes no sense, except in a
strictly conventional way, to ask whether the remembering person is the same as the remembered one. Here
I argue that, although right, this interpretation may not provide the full story, and that a discussion of the
self-givenness of remembered experiences adds to our understanding of the assertion that the remembered
and the remembering persons are neither different nor the same. 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

recall their content, but I also remember them as being given to me. It is true
that the I who underwent the experience is not the same as the one
remembering. Hence, when I recall these experiences as being mine, this
memory involves a partial distortion. But inasmuch as I remember these
memories in a first person mode, this remembering is not completely illusory
either, and captures something that separates these memories from those of
everybody else. Hence, Buddhist thinkers are not wrong to assert that the
remembering and the remembered persons are not identical but that they are
also not completely different either, since they share in the ways in which
experiences are given to them.
Moreover, the proponents of no-self are also not without justification in
raising doubts about Zahavi's assumption that the unity of our subjective life
requires an act-transcendent pole of identity enduring through the multiplicity
of experiences. For, what is the nature of this act-transcendent pole of self-
identity? Zahavi answers that the self is constituted by the invariant structure
of first-person self-givenness shared by the various experiences. This structure
supports the process of temporalization that is necessary to experience. That
is, we do not just have one experience after another, but rather we perceive
them to stand in a temporal order. This process of temporalization is based on
the retentive and protentive abilities of consciousness to keep track of past
experiences and to anticipate new ones.28 If I understand him correctly, Zahavi
holds that the self is this structure, which stands unchanged through the
temporalized experiences, much like James' rainbow appearing on a waterfall
(Zahavi 2005: 67). But the very use of this metaphor seems to raise doubts
about the reality of the self rather than prove its existence. For what is real
here? Is it the rainbow, or is it the waterfall, its water, and the sunlight? Is it
not the case that the structure that is conceived to be the unified self is an
abstract structure superimposed on the passing of experiences, much like the
rainbow is a visual illusion created by sunlight and the drops of water?
From the nominalist perspective that is at the heart of most Buddhist
traditions, the unity of this self-givenness is conceptually constructed on the
basis of the passing of the causally related temporalized experiences. What is
real for the Abhidharma tradition whose standpoint is reflected here are the
                                                            
28
 I am here rapidly glossing over the complex topic of time consciousness, one of Husserl's greatest
insights. I take it that the view of consciousness as being retentive of past moments and protentive toward
future ones is far from being incompatible with Buddhist anti-substantialism, and may even offer important
resources to further its philosophical project. For a remarkably clear presentation of this difficult subject,
see Zahavi (2005: 49–72). For a discussion in relation to the neurosciences, see Thompson (2007: ch. 11). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

causally effective elements that make up reality (the dharmas): here the
various transient experiences that we undergo in temporal order, and the
memories we have of them. The diachronic unity that we conceive them to
share is just a construct created by memory on the basis of the fact that each
experience is given in a first-person mode and inscribed within a temporal
order. Hence, although the unity that is conceived to encompass various
experiences is not completely divorced from reality, it is not fully real either.
It is a fiction that conceptually stands for the complex causal connections that
exist in reality. It is a convenient way to understand reality, what Buddhists
call a conventional truth, not a causally effective part of the fabric of reality.
Does it follow then that the person is just a convenient fiction imposed on
a group of impersonal elements? And if this is so, are we not back to the
bundle theory of the person that we sought to reject in the first place? The
conclusions that we can draw from this discussion are, I believe, quite clear.
The view of the person argued for here differs from the bundle theory in the
understanding of the basis necessary for the attribution of the concept of
person. The bundle theorist argues that the person is conceptually constructed
to account for the complexity and continuity of impersonal and anonymous
elements, and that the personal character attributed to these components arises
only through a post hoc fabrication. The view I am arguing for agrees that the
person is a conceptual fiction, but holds that there is, at the phenomenological
level, a minimal self-consciousness present in any experience necessary to the
attribution of this concept. When we attribute to ourselves personhood, we do
so, not just through a retrospective imputation on the impersonal elements of
our mind–body complex, but on the basis of the self-givenness of our
experiences, which are not given in a neutral mode and then retrospectively
made into our own, but, rather, arise as belonging to a minimal I (the
constantly changing stream of pre-reflective self-aware experiences, not the
reified self). Hence, the experiences on the basis of which we understand
ourselves as persons are not impersonal but intrinsically self-specified, and
this is why they are immune to any possible doubt as to whom the subject of
the experience is.29
From this perspective, the Buddhist doctrine of no-self is not just an
ontological or a metaphysical take on the question of personal identity, it is

                                                            
29
 For a thoughtful discussion of this process of self-specification, both at the experiential and the pre-
personal levels, see Legrand (2007). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

also a phenomenological inquiry into the various senses that we ordinarily

have of ourselves, inquiry that seeks to distinguish the distorted from the more
realistic sense of self. It is from this perspective that our discussion has
focused on at least two ways in which we conceive ourselves: as a transient
flow of subjective experiences (more on this later), and as a bounded enduring
self-entity endowed with a sense of agency. The Buddhist project of self-
transformation is based on the separation of these two senses of who we are,
to undermine the latter, which some Tibetan Buddhist thinkers describe as
the innate apprehension of self (bdag ‘dzin lhan skyes) (Hopkins 1983: 96–
109), about which more will be said below. Hence, from this perspective, if
the self exists, it must correspond to this innate sense of self.30
This claim raises at least two questions. First, are these Buddhists right to
assert that there is an innate sense of self in ordinary beings, and that its
content is as they have described it, namely a boss in charge of the mind–body
complex? Second, are these Buddhists right to claim that, if the self exists, it
must correspond to the sense of self that we ordinarily have? I believe that
Albahari's phenomenology of the self goes some way toward answering
positively the first question. I also believe that some of the contemporary
cognitive science discussions concerning the self (more on this shortly) bring
us some degree of confidence that the Buddhist description of the self is not
without some basis in reality, though only further research will enable us to
reach firmer conclusions. As for the second query, it raises large metaphysical
questions that cannot be addressed here, but I think that Galen Strawson is on
the right track when he states:

Here I think there is a fundamental dependence: metaphysical investigation of the

nature of the self is subordinate to phenomenological investigation of the sense of
self. There is a strong phenomenological constraint on any acceptable answer to
the metaphysical question which can be expressed by saying that the factual
question ‘Is there such a thing as a mental self?’ is equivalent to the question ‘Is
any (genuine) sense of self an accurate representation of anything that
exists?’(Strawson 1997: 409)

For Strawson, the inquiry into the nature of the self needs to relate to the
ways in which we actually conceive of ourselves. This requirement that
                                                            
30
 This is obviously ignoring the deeper level at which the subject-object structure disappears. 
GEORGES DREYFUS

metaphysical considerations be constrained by phenomenology is very

germane to the Buddhist approach, for the goal of the no-self doctrine is to
support a program of meditative training aimed at freeing us from the negative
habits (such as attachment and aversion) created by our sense of self. Hence,
to be effective, such a doctrine needs to address the ways in which we actually
conceive of ourselves, not just some abstract features considered from a third-
person perspective. Obviously such an assumption can be challenged, but it
would be hard to deny that it is at the heart of the Buddhist approach.
Moreover, like Strawson, I think that it makes a great deal of sense.
This primacy of the first-personal dimension in the inquiry about the self
may also help us understand how the Buddhist position articulated here differs
from Zahavi's view, according to which the self is based on an invariant
structure that provides the condition of the possibility of temporal experience.
From the Buddhist perspective articulated here, the putative self is not just the
object of an ontological inquiry but has to match, if it exists, the ways in
which we ordinarily conceive of ourselves. There are several ways in which
we can do this, as shown here. We can conceive of ourselves as a changing
subjectivity or as an enduring entity in charge of the body-mind complex, but
neither of these ways corresponds to the view of the self as an invariant
structure. The idea of such an abstract structure is part of a transcendental
analysis, and as such is quite different from the empirical phenomenology
pursued here.31 This transcendental approach may or may not be a fruitful way
to think about the conditions of the possibility of personhood, but it does not
match our ordinary ways of conceiving of ourselves, and hence fails the
requirement that metaphysical inquiry into the self be based on an
examination of our ordinary sense of self.

4. Various Senses of Self and Cognitive Sciences

This discussion of the nature of the person has intriguing parallels in recent
discussions in cognitive science about the self, particularly Damasio's
distinction between the proto-self, the core self, and the autobiographical self.
The starting point of Damasio's explanation of selfhood is the feeling that
whatever action I do, I always have the sense that it is I, rather than somebody
                                                            
31
 It should be clear that I am using here the term ‘empirical’ rather loosely. In particular, it is not meant to
indicate any connection to a scientific approach, but just to signal that the Abhidharma view delineated here
differs in important ways from Husserl's transcendental approach. 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

else, who is doing the action. Thus, there is a quiet presence of a sense of self
in my conscious life, a presence that never falters as long as I am actively
engaged.32 This sense of self corresponds to the core self, which remains
stable across the life of the organism. It is not exclusively human, does not
depend on conventional memory, language, or reasoning. It is not, however,
continuous, but arises transiently, being constantly re-generated anew for
every activity in which we are engaged. It is also remarkably stable, being
constantly recreated in essentially the same fashion. This core self is based on
a proto-self, which is the neural system of coordination of the functions
necessary to keeping the organism alive, being in charge of maintaining
homeostatic regulation within the organism's physical boundaries. As such, it
is not conscious, and becomes so only when it is represented as the core self.
Finally, the core self is extended through its being represented by memory and
language. This extended self is not punctual but covers the whole of our life.
This sense of self is narratively constructed, being born out of our interactions
with others. Hence, as Macintyre (1985) puts it, it is not our exclusive
creation, for ‘we are never more (and sometimes less) than the co-authors of
our own narratives’.33
This presentation of three levels of selfhood seems to be quite germane to
our distinction between self and subjectivity, and our description of the sense
of self as the boss in charge of leading the mind-body complex, a sense that is
to be undermined by Buddhist arguments and practices. The idea of a core self
seems to match quite closely the Buddhist description of the (mistaken) sense
of self as based on a basic level of agency. In the simple actions in which we
engage in daily life (grabbing a chair, holding a pot, going to a place, etc.) we
feel that we are in command. We freely decide to act and initiate the action,
which we try to bring to a successful conclusion. Obviously the result of our
action is not in our control, but the action itself is, or so we think. This basic
sense of agency, the sense that I have of being an active entity in charge of
directing the mind-body complex, corresponds quite well to Damasio's core
self.
But our sense of self is not just a way to create unity and coordinate the
mind–body complex. It is also a way to mobilize emotional resources for the
actions necessary to maintain the integrity of our organism. We do not just
                                                            
32
 Damasio (1999). This discussion of Damasio also relies on the useful summaries presented by Zahavi
(2005: 138–139), and Albahari (2006: 182–188). 
33
 A. MacIntyre (1985: 213). Quoted by Zahavi (2005: 109). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

protect ourselves by planning and acting in response to painful or pleasant

stimuli, but our actions are guided and enhanced by emotional responses that
allow for quick decisions and the mobilization of energy. These emotions do
not just push us to act mechanically, like a reflex would, but, rather, influence
us cognitively.34 They inform us of the nature of the situation we are facing,
telling us whether we are in danger (fear), in a favorable setting (joy), or about
to encounter a rival (jealousy). The effectiveness of emotions is that they
provide compelling information leading to immediate appraisals of the
situation, and thus prepare us for action. But this effectiveness is greatly
enhanced by the fact that they address our core sense of who we are. It is
because it is I who is in danger that I feel particularly afraid. Obviously, I can
be afraid for others, but we all know the difference between the fear that I
have for myself and the fear that I have for utter strangers. It is this overriding
and asymmetrical concern that I have for myself that accounts for the strength
of emotions. This concern is a result of the bounded nature of the self, which
is not just separate from the rest of the world, but also invested of a sense of
specialness. This is what accounts for its being, in the words of James, the
‘home of interest’,35 and gives particular effectiveness to the emotions.
This core sense of self is not a realistic representation of the organism.
Rather, it is a kind of phantom that the organism conjures for the sake of
acting effectively and thus maintaining its integrity. In this perspective, the
self is a construction that the organism creates for the sake of homeostatic
boundary preservation, presumably with some evolutionary advantages. In
humans, this sense of self emerges gradually and matures through a long
process of interaction with caretakers and the world. It starts in the first few
weeks of life when, after a first period of innately pre-attuned responses to the
solicitations of the environment, newborns start to be able to recognize their
caregiver by forming more integrated cognitive models. At this stage, babies
have a restricted range of actions within a very limited sense of the world as
being formed by small discrete islands of sensory-affective coherence. They
also do not have any explicit sense of themselves, but inasmuch as they are
able to alter their sensory experiences in limited ways, they do seem to have a
                                                            
34
Whether emotions are necessarily cognitive in the full sense of the word is a complex question.
Prinz (2004) offers an interesting analysis according to which emotions do not need to be cognitive and can
be what he calls embodied appraisals. Even then, however, they do influence us cognitively.

35
 James (1983: 285). For a similar argument about the evolutionary advantages that a sense of self brings
about, see Humphrey (2006). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

nascent sense of self. This core sense of self develops dramatically during the
later stages (particularly, but not only, during the sensorimotor stage) when
babies become capable of differentiating and coordinating the landscapes that
were previously experienced as discrete. This enables them to interact with
people through full sequences of actions rather than just rudimentary actions.
Babies start to initiate conversations through loud vocalization in the context
of visual contact with the caretaker. They also start to play with their
caretaker, initiating actions of reaching, grabbing, etc. Those are the early
signs of the emergence of a full-blown sense of agency that is experienced in a
more continuous fashion, and hence extends beyond the spatial and temporal
boundaries of individual situations. It is also the period in which the first seeds
of reflective self-representation are planted, when babies start to look at their
own bodies and form models of their own capacities. These cognitive and
affective capacities concerning the self further develop through various stages
that are well outside of the purview of this essay.36
The core sense of self that emerges through this developmental process is
central to how we act at the most basic level. It starts at a very early age and
gradually matures in ways that allow the person to become autonomous with
all the cognitive and affective capacities associated with human agency. This
development relies on the symbolic capacities that allow us to conceive of
ourselves as extending through long periods of time, rather than being limited
to the immediacy of the present. But the existence of this extended sense of
self should not obscure the fact that, although our core sense of self is greatly
extended by our acquisition of language, it is not created by language, for it
exists prior to the development of symbolic capacities. Hence, contrary to the
extended self, it exists in any animals that can act in a coordinated fashion,
even in the absence of any symbolic capacity.
This core sense of self seems to correspond to the Tibetan Buddhist
descriptions introduced earlier, the idea of an innate apprehension of the
self (bdag ‘dzin lhan skyes), the sense that we have of being the CEO of the
mind–body complex (see above). Tibetan thinkers distinguish this core sense
of self from the acquired apprehension of the self (bdag ‘dzin kun gtags), the
extended sense of self that develops on the basis of symbolic capacities,
                                                            
36
 My discussion is based on Case (1991). It should be clear that the few points made here have no
pretension at discussing adequately the early developmental process (a complex topic well beyond my
competence) but are just meant to illustrate the ways in which some of the Buddhist discussions of the self
intersect with some of the contemporary concerns. I must thank here R. Roeser for drawing my attention to
this interesting article. 
GEORGES DREYFUS

however rudimentary they may be. From a Buddhist perspective, however, the
presence of this core sense of self and its extension through symbolic systems
do not have only evolutionary or developmental advantages, but also bind us
into a condition of suffering (what Buddhists call duḥkha, i.e. suffering, dis-
ease, dissatisfaction, restless struggle, etc.). It leads to our being bound by
afflictive states such as attachment and anger, states that are based on the
illusory sense of the self. For without such a sense of self, we would still
experience emotions, but they would not be invested with the extremely
compelling power they ordinarily have. We would then have a capacity to act
more freely, that is, without being compelled by our usual self-centered
reactive patterns and negative habits, but would still be able to tap into the
source of energy that emotions provide.
The idea that one can be free from the sense of bounded self is quite
radical and raises many questions, particularly concerning the nature of
action.37 For if the deconstruction of the self entails the removal, or at least the
radical transformation, of our sense of agency, how is such a liberated person
(the Arhat) to act? This question concerns not only the intention that may push
such a person to act but also the kind of unity necessary for action. How can a
person without a self feel involved and act? What is the phenomenology of
such a sense of agency as distinguished from our ordinary self-based sense of
agency? These are obviously important questions that cannot be treated in
such a short essay.38 One thing that should be clear, however, is that from a
Buddhist perspective, the deconstruction of the self does not affect the person
as subjectively conscious. This point is not without some importance, for in
many contemporary discussions there is often a tacit identification of
consciousness and self. For example, Damasio often uses the two notions
interchangeably, speaking of core consciousness as synonymous with core
self (Damasio 1999: 7, 10, 27). This conflation may make some sense, given
that for ordinary beings the two often go together. Nevertheless, from a
Buddhist perspective, even in ordinary beings the two are not identical.
Stressing such a difference seems to be one of the contributions that Buddhist
philosophy can make to the contemporary discussion about the self.
To clarify this point, we need to go back to our Abhidharmic discussions
and examine the nature of the subject as it is articulated by the Yogācāra
                                                            
37
 For a series of extremely interesting discussions about agency and its relation to notions of self, see
Roessler and Eilan (2003). 
38
 For some insightful thoughts on this question, see Siderits (2003: ch. 5). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

tradition. This will be the occasion to examine further Albahari's contribution

to the Buddhist philosophy of the person and argue for an alternative to her
depiction of the subject as a transcendent witnessing consciousness. This will
also allow us to strengthen the case for our distinction between subjectivity
and self, and show its relevance to modern discussions of this topic within the
cognitive sciences.

5. The Nature of Subjectivity

For Albahari, the subject is to be sharply distinguished from the self. Contrary
to the latter, the subject cannot be found as such in our ordinary states of
mind, but only in what she calls ‘nibbānic consciousness’. This consciousness
is the state of mind that a fully liberated person, an Arhat, experiences. It is
unconditioned, and hence beyond the limitations of time, space, quality, and
relation. It involves immeasurable peace and happiness, being untainted by
any suffering or human limitation. Its mode of operation is witnessing and
hence it suffuses ordinary states of mind, though it remains unavailable as
such to the ordinary beings mired in ignorance (Albahari 2006: 29).
This view of the subject is somewhat surprising, and seems at times to
have more in common with Vedānta than with Buddhist sources. This is not to
say that there are no Buddhist sources that would support such a position.
Albahari provides a number of quotations from the Pali canon that at least
partly support her position, but I must confess that I remain unconvinced. For
one thing, Albahari presents her view as ‘the Buddhist position’, a pretension
that cannot be sustained in view of the diversity of views within any Buddhist
tradition, as argued above. Her view certainly qualifies as a Buddhist view,
and would be well supported by some of the views found in the Mahāyāna
tradition, where the idea of an enlightened state of mind existing in ordinary
sentient beings (the tathāgatagarbha) is well known,39 though far from being
universally accepted. But more importantly, I find this description of
subjectivity as a transcendent and static presence not terribly helpful, for it
seems to fly in the face of the constantly changing nature of subjectivity. For
although we have a sense of a constant presence in our psychic life, this
constancy seems to be better accounted for as a constantly changing but
always renewed background of awareness, rather than an unchanging

                                                            
39
 For an explanation of this concept, see Ruegg (1969 and 1989).
GEORGES DREYFUS

presence. This does not mean that we should entirely reject Albahari's
analysis, but we need to avoid speaking of ‘the subject’ as some kind of
transcendent entity, and instead find more grounded ways to articulate the
nature of subjectivity by focusing more particularly on the relation between
consciousness and embodiment. To do so, we turn to the Yogācāra sources
and their discussion of the eight types of consciousness.
In most Abhidharma systems, there are six types of consciousness: five
born from the five physical senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) and
mental cognition. Each type of sensory cognition is produced in dependence
on a sensory basis, one of the five physical senses, and an object. This
awareness arises momentarily and ceases immediately, to be replaced by
another moment of awareness. The sixth type of consciousness is mental. It is
considered by the Abhidharma as a sense-consciousness, like the five types of
physical sense-consciousness, though there are disagreements about its
basis.40
Some Abhidharma thinkers, such as Asaṅga, argue that these six types of
consciousness do not exhaust all the possible forms of awareness. To this list,
they add two types of awareness: the basic consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna, kun
gzhi rnam shes) and the ego consciousness (kliśṭa-manas, nyon yid, lit.,
afflictive mentation).41 The idea of a basic consciousness, a constant, neutral,
and subliminal baseline consciousness, has evoked various reactions among
Buddhist scholars, both traditional and modern. Conze is perhaps the most
outspoken critic of this idea, which he described as ‘a conceptual monstrosity’
(Conze 1973: 133). The reason for his objection is that the idea of a basic
consciousness seems to reintroduce the continuity of a self, within a tradition
that emphasizes change and discontinuity as being at the core of the person.
Classically, the doctrine of the basic consciousness is meant to answer the
objection that if there is no self and the mind is just a succession of mental
states, how can there be any continuity in our mental life? How are
propensities and habits transmitted if mind merely consists in a succession of
fleeting mental states? And more importantly, how can Buddhists explain,
within such an unstable configuration, the doctrine of karma, which

                                                            
40
For an extended discussion of the nature of this sixth consciousness, see Guenther (1976: 20–30).

41
 Rahula (1980: 17). Although the Theravāda Abhidharma does not recognize a distinct basic
consciousness, its concept of bhavaṇga citta, the life constituent consciousness, is quite similar. For a view
of the complexities of the bhavaṇga, see Waldron (2003: 81–87). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

presupposes continuity over many lifetimes? Asaṅga's answer is that there is a

more constant form of neutral consciousness, which is still momentary, but
created anew at every moment in a similarly subliminal form. This basic
consciousness is to be distinguished from the six types of consciousness
mentioned above which are described as manifest consciousness (pravṛtti-
vijñāna, 'jug shes). Being subliminal (lit., unclear), the basic consciousness
usually goes unnoticed. It is only in special circumstances, such as fainting or
deep sleep, that its presence can be noticed or at least inferred. Being neutral,
this consciousness can serve as the repository of all basic habits, tendencies,
propensities, and karmic latencies (the vāsanā) accumulated by the individual,
thus providing some degree of continuity. Hence, it is called ‘basic
consciousness’.42
The assertion that there is such a basic consciousness raises difficult
questions, which I wish to examine here briefly to provide a philosophical
defense of a doctrine that has often been neglected by those interested in
Buddhist philosophy. It should be clear, however, that in doing so I will feel
free to provide a philosophical interpretation of this doctrine, rather than a
literal rendering of Yogācāra sources. The first question that needs to be
confronted is raised by the assertion of the existence of a subliminal form of
consciousness. For if it is not manifest, how can it be said to be a form of
consciousness? We must remember that, in the perspective articulated here,
consciousness is not a substance but continuously changing mental states that
are directly or indirectly phenomenologically relevant. There are a number of
mental processes that are outside of our field of ordinary awareness. For
example, the brain is constantly engaged in regulating the vital functions. It is
also constantly monitoring the body, which is bombarded by external stimuli,
most of them well below the threshold of awareness. But most of these
processes are usually not included within the purview of consciousness since
we are not aware of them. Hence, it would then seem that the processes that
Yogācārins include within the purview of the basic consciousness are quite
real, but lie outside of the field of awareness, and hence do not warrant the use
of the term ‘consciousness’. In fact, they correspond to Damasio's proto-self,
the non-conscious level of the homeostatic control processes through which
biological identity is maintained.
                                                            
42
 The word ālaya is often glossed as home, store, basis, etc., and is often translated as ‘store
consciousness’, but I have preferred the more meaningful ‘basic consciousness,’ which corresponds to the
Tibetan kun gzhi. 
GEORGES DREYFUS

The Yogācāra response is that the mental processes included within the
scope of the basic consciousness may be outside of ordinary forms of
awareness, but are not in principle removed from phenomenological inquiry.
Hence, they can be thought of as being forms of awareness, rather than totally
unconscious. This view of a ‘non-conscious’ awareness may seem surprising
but has been defended by some contemporary thinkers. Robert Hanna and
Michelle Maiese, for example, have argued that the connection between
information processing and subjectivity is deep and intrinsic (what they call
‘the Deep Consciousness thesis’, Hanna and Maiese 2009: 28–57). For them,
all the cognitive processes that take place below the threshold of ordinary
awareness are nevertheless conscious in some minimal sense. This is so
because consciousness and embodiment have an intrinsic and mutual relation
that goes, so to speak, all the way down. As long as we are alive, the body
itself has a subjective feel to it that is connected to the many cognitive
processes that take place below the threshold of ordinary awareness. Hence,
these processes are not entirely outside of the purview of phenomenological
inquiry. Even deep sleep, often cited as the paradigm of a non-conscious state,
has a certain phenomenological feel to it. It is part of the constantly changing
flow of experiences that we undergo, and is retained as such. When we wake
up from deep sleep, we do not feel that there was nothing before, but, rather,
we feel that we are emerging from a particular mode of experience that is
different, for example, from a comatose state.43
This idea of a basic consciousness functioning at a level deeper than
ordinary awareness dovetails with Damasio's idea of a non-conscious proto-
self at the same time that it challenges its clear demarcation between the
conscious and the non-conscious. In opposition to Damasio's non-conscious
proto-self, Yogācāra sources argue that there is a basic level of awareness not
usually identified as consciousness but not completely non-conscious either.
In this perspective, the separation between the conscious and the non-
conscious becomes a matter of degree. The basic consciousness is the baseline
of consciousness, the passive level out of which more active and manifest
forms of awareness arise in accordance with the implicit preferential patterns
that structure emotionally and cognitively this most basic level of awareness.
Hence, consciousness is a multi-layered process that ranges from the inchoate

                                                            
43
 It should be noted that, for the Yogācārins, consciousness exists in its basic form even in coma, as we
will see shortly. 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

level of subliminal awareness to the clearest states of mindfulness in which I

seem to be fully present to the present moment. As such, it cannot be captured
by a simple either/or distinction.
The basic consciousness is also presented by Yogācāra sources as
connected to our sense of embodiment, being described as pervading the body
and accounting for the difference between a living body and a corpse
(Lamotte 1973: 58). This form of consciousness seems to correspond to the
implicit sense of the body and its relation to its surroundings alluded to above.
This sense of the body is passive and inchoate, but provides the cognitive
background out of which more salient elements make sense. For example, I
am walking on a path. Suddenly, the path on which I was walking gives out
and I lose my balance. At this point, I am explicitly aware of my body as
falling. But it is not the case that before this event I was totally unaware of my
body. Rather, I had a subliminal awareness that encompassed my whole body,
a sense of its aliveness, its occupation of a certain space, its movements, its
relation to its immediate environment, etc. It is out of this dim, and yet
patterned, space of awareness that my falling is apprehended. I am surprised
because I had a sense that my body was on firm ground and yet I am suddenly
falling. This is when my sense of the body emerges from a subliminal level of
awareness in sharp focus. This background awareness, which is described by
some phenomenologists as operative orientation, seems to be not unlike the
Yogācāra idea of a basic consciousness, a subliminal and yet structured space
of awareness that contains all the predispositions, and provides the cognitive
backdrop to more manifest forms of awareness.44
Basic consciousness also provides an articulation of the person that goes
beyond the bundle theory mentioned above. According to the Yogācāra
perspective, the basic consciousness is at the core of the idea of the person. It
is on its basis that the person understands himself or herself as a person. For
whether the person identifies himself or herself with the mind or the body, it is
always against the background of the basic consciousness that this
identification takes place. This is why several Yogācāra texts describe the
basic consciousness as the person. For example, the Sūtra of the Heavily
Adorneddescribes the basic consciousness as the ‘self of effects, the self of
causes, and also the internal self, dependent on the body of the embodied’
                                                            
44
 For an insightful discussion of this notion, see Steinbock (2005). It should be clear that my identification
of the basic consciousness with operative orientation is a rather free interpretation of the basic
consciousness doctrine. 
GEORGES DREYFUS

(Hopkins 2003: 439). I take this rather surprising characterization of the basic
consciousness as a self to refer to its being a process of constantly changing
moments of self-aware experience on the basis of which the person self-
identifies. This is how the Yogācārins understand the basic consciousness, that
is, as the basis mistaken by the ego consciousness as being a self. In this way,
the core sense of self is constructed out of the misapprehension of the basic
consciousness as being an entity that is bounded, in control of our actions, and
enduring through time. Hence, it should be clear that although the basic
consciousness has a close connection to the notion of the person, it is not a
self in the sense delineated here, since it is neither enduring (moment-
transcendent), nor is it bounded or endowed with a sense of agency.
The close connection between the person and the basic consciousness
appears quite clearly in the arguments given by Yogācārins to support their
views. The first among eight arguments infers the existence of the basic
consciousness from its close link to the person within the context of the
process of taking birth. This is the central argument among the eight, for it
goes to the heart of the traditional Indian Buddhist conception of the person as
being part of a continuity that extends over multiple past and future
lifetimes.45 This continuity, popularly misdescribed as reincarnation, is not to
be understood as entailing the existence of a continuous entity that undergoes
multiple lives but, rather, as being based on a constantly changing and yet
always renewed process of awareness, much like consciousness in this
lifetime is not an enduring entity but a series of changing and yet connected
mental states given in the first-person mode. The doctrine of the basic
consciousness is, in large part, an attempt to show how the continuity of
multiple lives is possible within an event ontology in which there is no
enduring substance.46
The Yogācāra argument for the basic consciousness is that, without such a
consciousness, the process of dying and taking birth cannot be satisfactorily
explained. This is so because the six consciousnesses operate only
intermittently, being produced only when suitable objects are

                                                            
45
 My discussion of the arguments for the basic consciousness is based on a work written by Tsongkhapa
during his youth. See Sparham (1993: 123–142). 
46
 For a detailed study of the tension within the Buddhist view of consciousness between the synchronic
analysis of consciousness as a stream of momentary mental states and the diachronic necessity to posit
some kind of continuity to explain the multiplicity of lives, see Waldron (2003). 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

encountered.47 At the times of death and birth, all the coarse states of mind
have ceased, and the person is plunged in a comatose subliminal state. In such
a state the manifest forms of awareness cannot arise. And yet, from the
traditional Buddhist perspective, there is the need for consciousness to be
present, otherwise there would be no dying and no birth. For the Yogācāra, the
stream of consciousness that undergoes the process of dying and being born is
the basic consciousness, which is constantly recreated anew as a subliminal
state of mind. As long as we are alive, there is an element of subjectivity that
is present, a minimal feel of how it is for the person to undergo this process.
For the Yogācārins, being a person entails more than being a mere body where
a series of ongoing vegetative processes take place. Rather, it implies being a
subject of experience, that is, having a sense of ownership of one's body. I can
exist only when I own my body, that is, when I feel my body as undergoing an
experience, however inchoate such experience may be. Such sense of
ownership implies a phenomenal mineness that comes in degrees. I am not
aware of my body in the same way when I am asleep or when I am awake. But
for the Yogācārins, as long as the person is alive, there is always an ongoing
sense of experiencing one's body from the inside, however minimal it may be.
This sense of experiencing the body from the inside, which Albahari aptly
describes as perspectival ownership,48 is what characterizes subjectivity, and
hence also the person. This sense of ownership may be extremely minimal,
but for the Yogācāra it is necessary. It is to be distinguished from the sense of
agency, the sense that one is the author of one's thoughts and actions. Such
sense may dissolve, as in the case of some schizophrenics who feel that they
have no control over their thought processes. It seems reasonable to argue that
what is impaired in these unfortunate people is not their sense of ownership
but their sense of agency. They appear to be still experiencing their thought
processes and their body from the inside, but they have lost any sense of
control over their subjectivity and are left helplessly exposed to all its
phantasmic creations, an experience that must be all the more terrifying in that
it is felt to be one's own.49
                                                            
47
 The ego consciousness is also not suitable as a candidate for the consciousness of death and rebirth in the
absence of the basic consciousness. This is so because the ego consciousness takes the basic consciousness
as its object and hence presupposes this consciousness. Sparham (1993: 126). 
48
Albahari (2006: 53) distinguishes perspectival ownership, the impression of inhabiting the body from the
inside, from personal ownership, the sense of identifying oneself as the owner of one's body.

49
 For a similar point, see Gallagher (2000: 203–239), quoted in Zahavi (2005: 143–144). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

Another important dimension of subjectivity is suggested by the second

and fifth arguments for the existence of the basic consciousness. These two
arguments deduce the existence of the basic consciousness from the
possibility of multi-sensory experience. Suppose that I am marching along a
narrow path, watching quite carefully where I am stepping. At the same time,
I am also aware of the feeling of my feet touching the ground, as well as of
my thinking that I need to be careful. This multi-sensory experience would not
be possible, argue the Yogācārins, without the basic consciousness. This
conclusion may seem far-fetched but points to an important dimension of
subjectivity, namely its synchronic unity. That is, I do not feel that it is several
‘I's that look, think, and feel, but, rather, that it is a single subject who
undergoes these multiple experiences at the same time. This subjective
synchronic unity is provided in the Yogācāra system by the basic
consciousness, which provides the background for the different sensory
modalities. Hence, the person has the sense of being a single subject
undergoing different experiences at the same time, and in that she is not
wrong, since any cognitive activity takes place against the background of the
basic consciousness.50
This argument from multisensory experience suggests an account of the
cognitive process that somewhat differs from the Theravāda view. Like the
Yogācāra, the Theravāda views mental processes as starting from the
continuum of a subliminal level of awareness (the bhavanga citta;
Bodhi 2000: 156–165). This continuum is constantly excited by sensory
stimuli and hence buzzing with a subliminal perceptual activity. When the
conditions are present, an object becomes prominent enough to draw out the
continuum, which emerges from its subliminal state to acquire a clear
cognition of this object through one of the six sense doors. In this perspective,
consciousness can only consider one object at a time. Hence, for the
Theravāda, the subliminal awareness is not constantly present but only when
there is no focused cognitive activity, contrary to the Yogācāra idea of the
basic consciousness. In this perspective, the impression that we have of
experiencing simultaneously various sensory objects is not due to a constant
                                                            
50
Sparham (1993: 127–131). This argument from multisensory experience suggests a view of the mind
markedly different from the Theravāda Abhidharma position. In this latter perspective, the impression of
multisensory experience, and hence the impression of subjective unity, are illusions created by the
tremendous speed of the mind moving from one sensory modality to another.

 
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

cognitive background, but is an illusion created by the tremendous speed of

the mind moving from one sensory modality to another. In both views,
however, the requirement that experience be synchronically and subjectively
unified is maintained, despite the differences in the phenomenological
descriptions and the ways in which this subjective unity is conceptualized.
In a recent contribution to the problem of consciousness, Searle has
argued for a view of consciousness that is not unlike the one suggested here.
Critiquing the building block theory of consciousness, the dominant paradigm
in the cognitive sciences, Searle argues for a unified field theory of
consciousness, a holistic and yet naturalistic approach to the hard problem of
how consciousness is produced by the brain (Searle 2000). For him, the
building-block approach faces a number of problems. Mired in an atomistic
and mechanistic approach that searches for the neurological correlates of
consciousness (NCC), it is unable to provide a solution to the binding
problem: the question of how to account for the fact that all the various stimuli
are united in a single conscious experience. For Searle, the building-block
theory cannot solve this problem because its search for the NCC of particular
mental states ignores the necessary conscious background that existed before
these mental states. Hence, the search for the NCC can never get to
consciousness itself. To do so, we need to conceive of consciousness as a
unified field, a kind of basal background awareness that goes on as long as we
are awake. If I understand Searle correctly, his view is not unlike the
Yogācāra doctrine of the basic consciousness, which is also a kind of basal
background consciousness. Differing from Searle, however, this
consciousness extends beyond the state of wakefulness to include dream and
even deep sleep states. But both views strongly emphasize the fact that the
synchronic unity of consciousness is an essential feature of subjectivity that
must be sharply distinguished from diachronic unity, which is a construction
based on memory, and hence to a certain extent illusory.
It is this basic consciousness that provides the subliminal passive
backdrop of self-awareness out of which more active and focused mental
processes arise. One of these mental processes almost continually present,
according to the Yogācāra, is the misconception of subjectivity as being an
enduring self. This is what is described as the ego consciousness, which
creates the self-phantom, the sense we have of being a bounded and enduring
entity in charge of the mind–body complex. One of the peculiarities of the
Yogācāra is the description of this sense of the self as a separate type of
GEORGES DREYFUS

consciousness. Whereas other Ābhidharmikas consider this sense of self part

of the sixth mental consciousness, the Yogācāra tradition insists on its being a
distinct seventh type of consciousness, to emphasize the fact that it is
constantly regenerated anew in our mental continuum for every activity in
which we are engaged, much like Damasio's core sense of self. We may not
be directly aware of it, but insofar as we engage in an activity, we are
informed by this sense of self that supports our action as well as binds us into
our self-centered perspective.
This shows the degree to which consciousness is not a simple
phenomenon but has a multiplicity of layers that are revealed only through
careful investigation, an analysis that is quite different from the view of
consciousness as being ‘gappy’ presented by Dennett and others
(Dennett, 1991). There may be gaps in the more manifest and superficial
forms of consciousness but at a deeper level there is an ever-renewed
background of mental presence. This background may be discontinuous in
that it is always changing but it is always renewed and hence always there to
provide the background of awareness out of which more focused cognitive
processes emerge.
I started my analysis of consciousness by stressing the importance of the
idea of the non-dual nature of awareness, and arguing that our ordinary sense
of a clear separation of the subjective and objective realms is delusive. I also
suggested that the non-dual nature of consciousness might be revealed in
certain deep meditative states, but that these experiences cannot provide a
sufficient articulation of what we ordinarily mean by ‘subjectivity’. To do so,
we need to analyze the structures of ordinary experience, particularly in its
reflexive aspects, as they emerge from the non-dual nature of consciousness.
This analysis has brought us to understand how ordinary subjectivity rests on
the existence of an ever-renewed background of mental presence which
provides a basis for the emergence of more focused forms of cognitive
activities. It should be clear, however, that for the Yogācāra this basic
consciousness is not the most fundamental level of consciousness. The basic
consciousness is part of the dualistic distortion of awareness that I mentioned
at the start of my analysis. There is a (phenomenologically speaking) deeper
level at which consciousness is aware of itself in a non-dual way. The
Yogācāra and other related traditions hold that this form of non-dual
awareness can be experienced and actualized through extended meditative
practices. In this way, the basic consciousness, which is mere aware clarity
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

unconfined by any cognitive form,51 is transmuted into a wisdom that is able

to undo the cognitive, conative, and affective knots created by duality. How
this is done and what this entails are difficult topics that cannot be discussed
here, but we need to keep in mind this soteriological dimension if we want to
do justice to the depth of the Yogācāra tradition.

6. Conclusion: Are We Still Allowed to Talk About

Experience?

Throughout this essay, I have used quite liberally the concept of experience to
discuss the topic of consciousness, in defiance of the suspicion that has
surrounded this concept within the humanities. This rejection of the notion of
experience is all the more unfortunate in that it comes at a time when there is a
willingness in some quarters to include the subjective aspects of mental
processes within the purview of the mind sciences. Within Buddhist studies,
the foremost proponent of this critique of experience has been Robert Sharf,
who has brilliantly and provocatively argued against the use of this notion.
Reacting to the previous exaggerated emphasis on experience as providing a
metaphysical basis for the justification and explanation of Buddhism, Sharf
has taken to task those who use the notion of experience as part of a crypto-
theological project to create a realm of privacy in which religion can escape
the suspicion that has undermined its credibility within the more educated
public. As Sharf rightly argues, it is simply not credible to claim that the
meaning of texts, rituals, and institutions is to elicit in the mind of the
practitioners some inner experience, for this ignores most of what is going on
in a religious tradition in order to focus on and distort a few rarefied
expressions.
But his provocative and welcome critique of experience goes much
further and impugns the very use of this notion, which for Sharf is hopelessly
mired in Cartesian metaphysics. Quoting Dennett with approval, Sharf states
his case in this way:

                                                            
51
This is the description given by Ju Mipham, trans. Doctor (2004: 355). Readers who know this author
may notice that my approach to the Yogācāra views of the mind bears a certain similarity to those of
Ṡāntarakṡita's views as interpreted by Mipham. It should also be clear, however, that my discussion here is
simplified to the point of caricature. In particular I am glossing over a number of extremely complex issues
concerning the relation between ordinary and enlightened states of mind. For Mipham's views on this topic,
see Hopkins (2006).
GEORGES DREYFUS

[T]here is a certain tendency to think of experience as a subjective ‘mental event’

or ‘inner process’ that eludes public scrutiny. In thinking about experience along
these lines, it is difficult to avoid the image of mind as an immaterial substrate or
psychic field, a sort of inner space in which the outer material world is reflected
or re-presented. Scholars leave the category of experience unexamined precisely
because the meaning of experience, like the stuff of experience, would seem to be
utterly transparent. Experience is simply given to us in the immediacy of each
moment of perception. This picture of the mind has its roots in Descartes and his
notion of mind as an ‘immaterial substance’ (although few would subscribe to
Descartes' substance ontology). And following the Cartesian perspective, we
assume that insofar as experience is immediately present, experience per se is
indubitable and irrefutable. (Sharf 1998: 94–116)

I cannot address here all the points made by Sharf, but it should be clear
that there is a fundamental difference between the target of his Dennettian
critique and the phenomenological views that have informed this essay. Sharf
assumes in his critique of experience that its use necessarily implies a view of
consciousness as being private, transparent, and immune to mistake. I believe
that this essay shows that this is simply not the case. It is true that the notion
of experience entails a view of the mind as having a subjective side, a side that
is often difficult to pin down, but this hardly entails that the mind is enclosed
in a private realm, immune to external scrutiny. In fact, phenomenologists
such as Husserl, Heidegger, Scheler, and Merleau-Ponty have taken great
pains to show that the concern with human experience in no way implies the
sealing off of the mind in a realm of transparent absolute privacy. On the
contrary, these thinkers have emphasized the opacity of subjectivity and its
limitations, and argued that a convincing account of experience cannot isolate
what is going on in one's mind, but must consider its inter-subjective
dimensions. These dimensions are multiple and complex, ranging from the
ways in which bodies interact to the role of empathy and the place of
symbolically mediated social interactions.52 But all these thinkers concur in
the same conclusion, that it is only by taking into considerations these
dimensions that we can hope to have an adequate sense of what is entailed by
the concept of experience.
                                                            
52
(52) For a brief summary of various views on intersubjectivity, see Zahavi (2005), 147–177. For a
thoughtful discussion of the role of empathy, see Thompson (2007), 382–411.
 SELF AND SUBJECTIVITY: A MIDDLE WAY APPROACH

Hence, it should be clear that although the use of the term ‘experience’
does signal the importance of subjectivity for a Buddhist account of the
person, it does not entail the kind of Cartesian position caricatured by Sharf. I
believe that it is time to rehabilitate the notion of experience, and to avoid
assuming that its use necessarily leads to a crypto-theological project mired in
hopeless metaphysics.53 I also believe that this rehabilitation is of some
importance for the study of Buddhism and its philosophy, importance that
goes well beyond the present essay. It will allow the inclusion of the traditions
whose views rely more specifically on notions derived from meditative
experiences within the purview of Buddhist philosophy. This is perhaps the
case of the Yogācāra tradition, whose views are often derived from meditative
experiences (hence its name), but remain surrounded by some suspicion
within Buddhist studies, despite the considerable resources that they offer for
the elaboration of Buddhist views of the mind as shown here. This is also true
of the tantric tradition, which is often considered as merely practical without
much philosophical importance. The neglect of its philosophical content is
due to a number of factors that cannot be analyzed here but has had the
unfortunate result of removing tantric material from the purview of those who
are interested in understanding Buddhist views of consciousness and its
relation to the person. Considerable attention has been devoted to the textual
material of the tantric tradition, its historical evolution, and its relation to
vernacular cultures. Those are all important topics worthy of consideration,
but they leave out important areas of inquiry such as the bearing of tantric
ideas on our understanding of the person, consciousness, embodiment, etc. To
include these views within the purview of Buddhist philosophy, we will need
to accept notions that make sense within the context of yogic practices, and
hence be open to include within the purview of our conversations the
experiential aspects of the tradition. Only then can scholars of Buddhist
studies hope to do justice to the full range of Buddhist views of consciousness
and the person and, perhaps, be in a position to make significant contributions
to our understanding of consciousness.

                                                            
53
 (53) For a response to Sharf and a defense of the place of experience within Tibetan Buddhism, see
Gyatso (1999). 
GEORGES DREYFUS

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 5
Self‐No‐Self? Memory and
Reflexive Awareness
EVAN THOMPSON

1. Introduction

This paper focuses on two interrelated problems: Does consciousness

essentially involve self-awareness? Does self-awareness imply the existence
of a self? I will answer yes to both questions, but my yes for the second
question will be a qualified one.
I plan to address these two problems by counterpoising two distinct
philosophical traditions and debates. The first is the debate over reflexive
awareness (svasaṃvedana) in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. The second
is the debate between egological versus nonegological conceptions of
consciousness in Western phenomenology.1

2. Does Consciousness Essentially Involve Self-

Awareness?

2.a The Self-Awareness Thesis

One of the central theses found in the phenomenological tradition is that
intentionality (the object-directedness of consciousness) essentially involves
self-awareness. Put another way, intentional experience is also necessarily
self-experience. The following quotations all express this thesis:

                                                            
1
 A full treatment would require situating these two debates in relation to at least two other broad debates in
Western and Indian philosophy—higher-order theories of consciousness versus same-order theories (see the
papers collected in Genarro 2004, and Kriegel and Winniford 2006), and reflectionist/other-illumination
(paraprakāśa) theories of self-awareness (e.g. Nyāya) versus reflexivist/self-illumination (svaprakāśa)
theories (e.g. Yogācāra). But space demands that I set aside these debates here. See Mackenzie (2007) and
Ram-Prasad (2007: 51–99) for further discussion. 
EVAN THOMPSON

Every experience is ‘consciousness’, and consciousness is

‘consciousness of’…But every experience is itself experienced [erlebt], and to
that extent also ‘conscious’ [bewußt]. (Husserl 1991: 291)

[C]onsciousness is consciousness of itself. This is to say that the type of existence

of consciousness is to be consciousness of itself. And consciousness is aware of
itself in so far as it is consciousness of a transcendent object. (Sartre 1991: 40)

[T]he necessary and sufficient condition for a knowing consciousness to be

knowledge of its object, is that it be consciousness of itself as being that
knowledge. (Sartre 1956: liii)

Every consciousness exists as consciousness of existing.(Sartre 1956: liv)

All thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness, failing which it

could have no object.(Merleau-Ponty 1962: 371)

Exactly what kind of self-consciousness is at issue here? If intentional

experience is also necessarily self-experience, what sort of self-experience are
we talking about?

2.b Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness

Phenomenologists stand united in rejecting higher-order theories of
consciousness (e.g. Rosenthal2005) and reflectionist/other-illumination
(paraprakāśa) theories of self-awareness (see MacKenzie2007; Ram-
Prasad 2007: 51–99). According to these theories, self-awareness is the
product of a second-order cognitive state taking a distinct, first-order mental
state as its intentional object. Phenomenologists from Husserl onwards have,
instead, maintained both that intentional experience is pre-reflectively self-
aware and that pre-reflective self-awareness is not a kind of transitive (object-
directed) consciousness (see Zahavi 2005). In other words, every intentional
experience both presents (or re-presents) its intentional object and discloses
itself, but this self-disclosure is intransitive. The kind of intransitivity of
concern here is not a hidden or suppressed transitivity, in the way ‘I sing’ is
intransitive (where it still makes sense to ask, ‘What are you singing’?), but
rather an absolute intransitivity, in the way ‘I jump’ is intransitive (where it
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

makes no sense to ask, ‘What are you jumping?’) (Legrand 2009). Although
the ‘what question’ can arise for the transitive component of an intentional
experience, it cannot arise for the intransitive component of pre-reflective
self-awareness. In sum, according to this view, every transitive consciousness
of an object is pre-reflectively and intransitively self-conscious. Or as Sartre
would say, ‘all positional consciousness of an object is necessarily a
nonpositional consciousness of itself’ (Sartre 1967: 114).2

2.c The Argument from Time-Consciousness

In the phenomenological tradition, this conception of intransitive and pre-
reflective self-consciousness is closely connected to considerations about
time-consciousness and temporality. According to Husserl (1991), the
phenomenological structure of time-consciousness entails pre-reflective self-
awareness. In our consciousness of temporal phenomena (duration, change,
sequence, etc.), three intentional processes work together and cannot operate
on their own apart from one another—primal impression, retention, and
protention. For example, for each now-phase of a melody, each currently
sounding note, there is (i) a corresponding primal impression directed
exclusively toward that now-phase, (ii) a retention directed toward the just-
elapsed phase of the melody, the just-heard notes, and (iii) a protention of the
immediate future phase, the notes of the melody intended as just-about-to-
occur. For simplicity, take retention. Any given now-phase of consciousness
retains the just-past phases of its intentional object only by retaining the just-
past phases of its consciousness of the object: I am aware of the notes of the
melody as slipping into the past only through my awareness of the notes as
having just been heard by me. Thus, not only is consciousness aware of itself
in retention, but it must be retentionally self-aware in order to be aware of
objects across time. This retentional self-awareness is not a form of transitive
consciousness (object-directed intentionality): it is rather an intransitive
reflexivity, a passive self-relatedness. In this way, time-consciousness entails
                                                            
2
 Cf. also these passages: ‘[T]he object with its characteristic opacity is before consciousness, but
consciousness is purely and simply consciousness of being consciousness of that object. This is the law of
its existence. We should add that this consciousness of consciousness—except in the case of reflective
consciousness…is not positional, which is to say that consciousness is not for itself its own object’
(Sartre 1991: 40–41). ‘We understand now why the first consciousness of consciousness is not positional; it
is because it is one with the consciousness of which it is consciousness. At one stroke it determines itself as
consciousness of perception and as perception…This self-consciousness we ought to consider not as a new
consciousness, but as the only mode of existence which is possible for a consciousness of something’
(Sartre 1956: liv). 
EVAN THOMPSON

pre-reflective self-awareness. More precisely, internal time-consciousness—

our implicit awareness of our experiences as flowing in time—is most
fundamentally the pre-reflective self-awareness of the stream of consciousness
(see Zahavi 2005: ch. 3).

2.d The Reflexive Awareness Thesis

I turn now to Buddhist philosophy. In certain schools of Indian, Chinese, and
Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, we also find the view that consciousness or
awareness is reflexive (Williams 1998; Yao2005). The Sanskrit term
is svasaṃvedana, which has been variously translated as reflexive awareness,
self-awareness, and self-cognition. Buddhist philosophical systems that accept
this notion explain that it means a cognition's being aware of itself
simultaneously with its awareness of an object, and that this kind of self-
awareness or reflexive awareness is nondual, that is, it does not involve any
subject/object structure (see Sopa and Hopkins 1976: 78). The analogy or
simile often used is that of a light, which in its illumination of objects also
illuminates itself (see Williams 1998; Yao 2005).

2.e Setting Aside Representationalism

In Buddhist philosophy, the reflexive awareness thesis is associated with what
Western philosophers would call representationalism in the theory of
perception. According to Dignāga (c.480–540 ce) and Dharmakīrti (c.600–
660 ce), cognition does not apprehend its object nakedly, but rather through an
aspect (ākāra), which is the phenomenal form of the object left imprinted on
cognition. Because the immediate object of cognition is the phenomenal
aspect, and the phenomenal aspect is internal to the cognition, every cognition
is directed toward a feature of itself, simply in virtue of being directed toward
its immediate object. Thus cognition is reflexive, because in the process of
revealing external things (by way of the aspect), cognition also reveals itself
(see Dreyfus 1997; Dunne 2004).
I mention this traditional connection to representationalism in order to set
it aside. From the standpoint of my concerns about self-consciousness in this
paper, we can separate the reflexive awareness thesis from
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

representationalism. It is the reflexive awareness thesis as a phenomenological

thesis that is my concern here.3

2.f Śāntarakṣita On Reflexive Awareness

I will focus on reflexive awareness as Śāntarakṣita (725–788 ce) understands
it (Blumenthal 2004). My reason for choosing Śāntarakṣita is that he
maintains that the nature of consciousness is reflexive
4
awareness. Śāntarakṣita states that reflexive awareness is what distinguishes
sentience from insentience: The nature of consciousness is reflexive
awareness and that which is not reflexively aware is insentient (The Ornament
of the Middle Way 16, translated by Blumenthal 2004: 237). To the objection
that an act cannot be directed toward itself but must be directed toward an
object, he replies that reflexive awareness does not have an agent-action-
object structure. In other words, the reflexive (self-related) aspect of
awareness is intransitive.

2.g The Memory Argument

One of the main arguments for the reflexive awareness thesis is the so-called
memory argument, which seems to have originated with Dignāga but is
widely discussed by those who advocate the reflexive awareness thesis as well
as those who deny it (Williams 1998: 9–10; Yao 2005: 115–117). According
to this argument, memory requires previous experience: when one recollects
one recalls both the objectperceived and that I have perceived this object, thus
no additional higher-order or reflective cognition is required in order to recall
the subjective side of the experience (my perceiving), hence reflexive self-
awareness or self-cognition belonged to the original experience (i.e. the
original experience was not simply one of perceiving the object, but also one
of experiencing oneself perceiving the object).
This classical formulation of the argument is egological because it
involves the explicit I-cognition, ‘I have perceived this object.’ It is also
possible, however, to reformulate the argument nonegologically without any
                                                            
3
 The reflexive awareness thesis in Buddhist philosophy is also associated with what Western philosophers
would call idealism in metaphysics (the view that there are no extra-mental objects). For further discussion
of idealism in Buddhism, see Siderits (2007: 146–179). 
4
 By ‘nature’ Śāntarakṣita means conventional distinguishing characteristic of consciousness, not ultimate
intrinsic nature, because as a Mādhyamika philosopher he rejects the view that phenomena, including
mental phenomena, have ultimate intrinsic natures. 
EVAN THOMPSON

explicit I-cognition: Memory requires previous experience: when one

recollects one recalls both the object perceived and the past seeing of this
object, thus no additional higher-order or reflective cognition is required in
order to recall the subjective side of the experience (the seeing), hence
reflexive self-awareness or self-cognition belonged to the original experience
(i.e. the original experience was not simply one of perceiving the object but
also one of experiencing the seeing of the object).
The nonegological conception is preferable at this stage of our discussion,
for we do not wish to prejudge the issue of whether reflexive experience is
egological. This issue—egological versus nonegological conceptions of
consciousness—will be taken up later in this paper.
It will be useful to have a more formal presentation of the memory
argument. Here is my reconstruction of the argument as it is presented by
Śāntarakṣita and understood by his Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika critics (whose
criticisms we will shortly examine):5

1. When one remembers (say) yesterday's vivid blue sky, one

remembers not simply the blue sky, but also seeing the blue sky. In
other words, one remembers not just the object seen, but also the
visual experience of seeing. Thus the memory comprises both the
objective side of the perception (the object seen) and the subjective
side of the perception (the seeing). (Phenomenological claim)
2. Thus no additional cognition is necessary in order to recall the
subjective side of the original experience. (Phenomenological claim)
3. To remember something one must have experienced it. (Conceptual
claim)
4. The causal basis for features of the present memory is
corresponding features of the past experience. (Causal claim)
5. So the past visual perception must have included an experience of
the seeing, along with the object seen. In other words, the perception
must have included an awareness of itself as a visual perception,
which is to say that it must have been reflexively self-aware.
(Conclusion)

                                                            
5
 Note that I say ‘reconstruction’ because I make no claim that my presentation coincides with traditional
presentations of the argument by either its advocates or its critics. I do claim, however, that my
reconstruction captures the philosophical premises and reasoning that constitute the heart of the argument. 
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

Whether this argument is deductively valid or sound is debatable. I propose,

however, to view the argument as an inference to the best explanation. Given
the first and second premises as phenomenological evidence, the best
explanation for this evidence (so the argument claims) is the hypothesis of
reflexive awareness. Understood this way, I find the argument persuasive. To
explain why, I turn now to consider criticisms of the memory argument, which
I will argue are unsuccessful.

2.h Objections to the Memory Argument

In a recent article, Jay Garfield (2006) presents and endorses two objections to
the memory argument made by the Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika philosophers
Candrakīrti (c.600–650 ce), Śāntideva (c.650–750ce), and Tsong Khapa
(1357–1419) (who, as Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamikas, reject reflexive awareness).
First objection: Premise 1 is not proven. The premise assumes that the
current memory must be the memory of one's being conscious (being visually
aware), rather than simply the memory of that of which one was conscious
(the object). But this claim about memory needs to be established.
Second objection: Premise 4 is not proven. It has not been shown that
reflexive awareness is ever a cause of memory, or that the only plausible
cause of memory is reflexive awareness. Furthermore, an alternative and
simpler explanation is available: One sees the blue sky without being
reflexively aware of one's seeing; this perception causes a subsequent memory
of the blue sky, and on this basis one infers that one was visually aware of the
sky. On this view, one infers the subjective side of the original perception; it is
not given directly to memory, and hence it was not present reflexively in the
original perceptual experience.
Here is Śāntideva's analogy as presented by Garfield: ‘A bear is
hibernating and is bitten by a rat. He develops an infection at the site of the
wound. When he awakes in the spring he experiences the pain of the infected
wound and knows on that basis that he experienced a rat bite, even though at
the time he was not aware that he was experiencing the bite’ (Garfield 2006:
210).
To reply to these objections I will draw from Husserl's analyses of
memory. Although Williams (1998: 237) states that he is not familiar with the
Buddhist memory argument from any Western context, Husserl (1991, 2005)
EVAN THOMPSON

advances similar considerations in his writings on memory and time-

consciousness.

2.i Reply to the First Objection

The first premise of the memory argument makes a phenomenological claim
about memory: When I remember yesterday's blue sky there is a memory of
blue and a memory of seeing blue. The objection is that this claim about
memory needs to be established. One way to establish, or at least support, this
claim is to ground it on a phenomenological account of memory. Husserl
provides what we need in the form of a phenomenological analysis of the
intentional structure of episodic memory.
Let me begin with Husserl's distinction between intentional acts of
presentation and re-presentation (Marbach 1993: chs. 2 and 3). Perception is
presentational; imagination and memory are re-presentational. We can
approach this distinction from two sides, the side of the intentional object and
the side of the intentional act. In a perceptual experience, such as the
perception of a blue pot on the table, the object is experienced as present in its
‘bodily being’ and thus as directly accessible—one can view it from different
vantage points, pick it up and examine it more closely, and so on. In a re-
presentational experience, such as the visual memory of the blue pot, the
object is not experienced as present and accessible in this way, but as absent.
Yet this absence is precisely a phenomenal absence, for the experience is of
the object precisely as absent. This difference on the side of the intentional
object between bodily presence and absence corresponds to the difference on
the side of the intentional act between presentation and re-presentation. A re-
presentational experience intends its object precisely as both phenomenally
absent in its bodily being, and as mentally evoked or brought forth. In this
way, the object is said to be mentally re-presented, rather than perceptually
presented. It is important to note that what makes the experience re-
presentational is precisely that its object is mentally evoked or brought forth,
while also being phenomenally absent; it is not that the object is mentally
evoked or brought forth again. The latter characteristic belongs to memory,
but not to creative imagination or free fantasy.
In episodic memory, a situation or event is experienced not as present but
as past, and thus absent. Therefore, the past situation or event is necessarily
re-presented by the intentional cognition that takes it as its object. The
phenomenological question is how this re-presentation subjectively works.
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

According to image theories of memory, in remembering, one apprehends a

mental image of something experienced in the past. One problem with these
theories is that in memory one does not take oneself to be imagining
something that seems like what one remembers (an image or picture of what
one remembers): one takes oneself to be remembering the object itself that
was once present or the event itself that once occurred. The standard way to
deal with this problem is to insist that what one remembers is the past
occurrence, not the mental image, but that one remembers the past by way of
the mental image. But this move highlights a deeper problem, which is that
image theories fail to account for how an image had in the present can yield a
memory experience as of something past. Husserl's account of memory as the
re-presentation of a past experience aims to overcome this difficulty
(Bernet 2002; Marbach 1993: 78–83).
Husserl submits that when one remembers a past occurrence, situation, or
event, one also implicitly remembers one's earlier experience of that
occurrence, situation, or event. Thus, in memory, one apprehends something
(the absent past), not by means of an image—in the sense of a mental picture
that exists in the present—but through the mental activity of re-presenting an
experience believed to have occurred in the past. Of course, one does not have
to entertain this belief explicitly in the episodic memory experience. Rather, in
remembering, the re-presented experience is simply subjectively given as
having occurred in the past. In memory, one reproduces and relives, as it
were, this past experience, but in a modified way, namely, precisely as re-
presented, and thus as not occurring now but posited as past. In other words,
the past experience is not literally or really reproduced in the present, but is
rather reproduced as part of the intentional content of the memory
(Marbach 1993: 61). In Husserl's formulation, the present memory does not
‘really’ contain the past experience, but instead contains it only intentionally
and in this way ‘intentionally implicates’ it (Husserl 1983: 294; Marbach1993:
34–36, 69–70).6
On this view, to remember X is to intend or refer or mentally direct
oneself to X by re-presenting an experience of X that is subjectively given as
having occurred in the past (or, in a more cognitivist vein, that is believed to
have occurred in the past). Notice that the intentional object of the memory is
                                                            
6
 It is important to note that such intentional implication is not thought to involve inference. The idea is
rather that, in remembering, one relives, as it were, the past experience, which comprises both its intentional
object and its pre‐reflective and intransitive self-awareness. 
EVAN THOMPSON

usually the past occurrence (X), not the past experience of it. In other words, it
is usually the objective side of the experience (the noema in
phenomenological parlance), not the subjective side (the noesis). If the
intentional object of the memory is the past experience as such, that is, the
subjective side of the experience, then the memory is a reflective memory.
Usually, however, the re-presenting of the past experience figures only
implicitly and pre-reflectively in one's memory of the past event or situation.
In this way, the memory is unreflective.
Husserl maintains that the phenomenal temporal distance between the
present and the past is possible only insofar as the present act of remembering
evokes both the object and the elapsed consciousness of it. If we suppose that
the act of remembering reproduces only the past object, then we cannot
explain how this object retains its character of being past or belonging to the
past. Yesterday's blue sky is gone, so the only way to reproduce it is in the
form of an image. But if yesterday's blue sky appeared only as a mental image
apprehended in the present, then how could this image retain the character of
pastness? The reason the object recollected in the present retains its character
of pastness is that the remembering consciousness comprises two distinct
intentional acts—the present act of bringing back the past object, and the past
perception of that object. Once again, the present remembering does not really
contain the past perception: it contains it only intentionally. The experience of
remembering thus involves a kind of doubling of consciousness, for in being
the conscious re-presentation of a past object, remembering is also the
conscious re-presentation of a previous consciousness. It is precisely this
doubling that accounts for the past remaining separated from the present, even
though it is remembered in the present (Bernet 2002; Stawarska 2002).
This account of memory clearly grounds the phenomenological claim
made in Premise 1 of the memory argument: The memory of yesterday's blue
sky intentionally implicates yesterday's experience of seeing the blue sky.
Therefore, unless the opponent of the memory argument can provide a
superior, or at least equally satisfactory, alternative analysis of the
phenomenology of memory, Premise 1 can be taken as an established
phenomenological datum about memory in need of explanation. The reflexive
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

awareness thesis—the conclusion of the memory argument—purports to

provide that explanation.7

2.j Reply to the Second Objection

This objection claims to offer an alternative and better explanation of memory
than does the reflexive awareness thesis. On the basis of one's present memory
of the past object one knows by inference that one was aware of the object,
without that awareness needing to have been self-aware at the time of its
occurrence.
The groundwork for replying to this objection has already been laid in the
reply to the first objection. The alternative proposal does not account for the
phenomenological structure of episodic memory.
According to the proposal, (i) one is subject to an occurrence (a rat bite, a
visual cognition of blue); (ii) one lacks any awareness of the occurrence when
it happens; (iii) the occurrence causes one later to be aware of some of its
effects (pain from the bite, a memory image of blue); and (iv) those effects (as
well as others) induce in one a cognitive state directed at the earlier
occurrence.
These conditions, however, are not sufficient to account for the
experience of memory, specifically for how past experience appears from the
first-person perspective in the experience of remembering. To refer mentally
to the past (iv) on the basis of the awareness of a mental image in the present
(iii) is like reading the date-stamp on a letter and on that basis thinking about
the date on which the letter was sent. What is missing here is precisely an
experience of the past in the sense of an experience with the phenomenal
(intuitional) content of pastness.
According to Husserl, as we have seen, this phenomenal content comes
from the past experience being part of the intentional structure of the memory
of the object. Memory is not thinking about the past on the basis of present
marks (like tree rings or time stamps), it is re-presenting the past by, or
through, re-presenting past experience. Thus the reflexive awareness thesis
(underwritten by Husserl's phenomenology) provides a better account of
memory than the alternative.
                                                            
7
 Of course, here I go well beyond anything that Śāntarakṣita explicitly endorses. Indeed, he might not
accept the kind of phenomenological reasoning I employ here. My aim, however, is not to offer an account
of how Śāntarakṣita might reply to Garfield's objections to the memory argument, but rather to show that
Husserlian phenomenology can provide an effective reply to these objections. 
EVAN THOMPSON

In the first part of this paper I have defended the memory argument for
reflexive awareness against Garfield's (2006) criticisms. The question that
now arises—especially given the enlistment of Husserlian phenomenology in
support of the memory argument—is whether reflexive awareness implies a
self. Or to put the question another way, is reflexive awareness compatible
with the doctrinal Buddhist insistence on no-self?

3. Does Self-Awareness Imply the Existence of a Self?

The Buddhist answer to the question of whether self-awareness entails a self is

clearly No when ‘self’ means an enduring entity (one that is wholly present
from moment to moment) with an existence separate or somehow distinct
from the series of psychophysical events (Dreyfus this volume;
MacKenzie 2008). Consciousness alone is the subject of experience.
Moreover, according to some views, every conscious experience is
momentary and discrete, so strictly speaking there is no persisting subject (no
subject that exists for more than one discrete moment). Other views, however,
identify the subject with the continuum as a whole, rather than any particular
stage of the continuum. In either case, the subject of experience is not
equivalent to a self because ‘self’ is understood to mean a type of subject—
one that endures with separate existence. Of course, according to the Buddhist
view, it is precisely this type of subject that we mistakenly take ourselves to
be as a result of deep-seated cognitive and emotional processes of
identification with the psychophysical complex as a self (Albahari 2006).
Certainly, if we subscribe to this distinction between self and subject, then
the reflexive awareness thesis and its supporting memory argument do not
imply the existence of a self. But is this sharp distinction between self and
subject philosophically sustainable? Given that some concept of no-self
(anatta/anātman) seems to be non-negotiable for the Buddhist, any
philosopher who wishes to self-identify (as it were) as a Buddhist would seem
to have no option but to account for subjectivity within one or another no-self
paradigm (see Albahari 2006; Dreyfus this volume), or perhaps to deny
subjectivity as understood here (Siderits this volume). The second option is
not one I can consider here. The first one, however, gives rise to a serious
tension: The more we enrich the concept of the subject—for example, through
considerations about memory and time-consciousness—the more we reduce
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

the conceptual distance between the self and the subject (or subjectivity) of
experience.8
Let me be more specific. The price to pay for the Husserlian shoring up of
the memory argument for reflexive awareness is a robust notion of
subjectivity, one that considerably lessens the distance between the notion of a
mere subject of experience and a self. In this phenomenological account of
memory, the subject (or subjectivity) of experience is precisely the selfhood
(ipseity) of time-consciousness—the pre-reflective self-awareness of the
stream of consciousness as a stream, including the automatic givenness of past
experience from within as one's own past experience in retention (primary
memory) and remembering (secondary or reproductive memory).
Of course, this phenomenological notion of selfhood is far from the notion
of the self as an enduring entity distinct from the flow of mental and physical
events. But no phenomenologist would allow that this highly restricted notion
of the self should be our touchstone for assessing the phenomenological and
metaphysical status of the self (see Zahavi 2005; this volume).9

3.a A Nonegological Conception of Consciousness

A challenge now presents itself from within phenomenology in the form of the
so-called nonegological conception of consciousness (Gurwitsch 1966).
Whereas Husserl thought that phenomenological analysis revealed a
transcendental ego abiding through the intentional activities of consciousness,
Sartre denied that the stream of consciousness has an ego at its source. Much
of the egological versus nonegological debate turns on how to understand the
phenomenology of memory, so examining this debate will help to connect the
self-no-self issue to our earlier considerations about memory and reflexive
awareness.
Sartre held that the ego or ‘I’ is absent from unreflective consciousness.
To quote one of his famous examples: ‘When I run after a streetcar, when I
look at the time, when I am absorbed in contemplating a portrait, there is no I.
There is consciousness-of-the-streetcar-having-to-be-overtaken, etc., and non-
positional consciousness of consciousness’ (Sartre 1991: 48–49). Only when
we reflect on such experiences does the ego appear—but always as an object
                                                            
8
 MacKenzie (this volume) provides another option: The self is dependently originated but nonetheless real.
I am greatly sympathetic to this approach. 
9
 For further criticism of the attempt to distinguish subject and self—criticism that appeals to the
importance of the body and embodiment—see Henry and Thompson (in press). 
EVAN THOMPSON

of the reflective act. The ego or ‘I’ is always an intentional object (hence
transcendent) and never a (transcendental) subject: The ego belongs to the
content of the reflected experience, whereas both the original unreflected
experience and the act of reflection (itself an unreflected experience) lack an
ego.
Sartre supports his nonegological position with considerations about
memory (Sartre 1991: 43–48). He states that one can recall a past event in two
ways: (i) one can focus on the object of the past experience (yesterday's blue
sky), or (ii) one can focus on the past experience itself (yesterday's perception
of the blue sky). The first kind of recollection, Sartre maintains, is impersonal
or nonegological—it does not include an experience of the ego as the subject
who perceived the object in the past. The second sort of recollection is
reflective and egological—it takes the past act of consciousness as its object
and gives rise to the illusion that this act was accompanied by an experience
of the ‘I’ or ego.
How do we know that the past experience was not accompanied by an
experience of the ego? Sartre thinks we can revive the past experience in
memory, direct our attention to the revived past object without losing sight of
the past unreflected experience, yet all the while not turn the memory into a
reflective one, and thereby not objectify the past experience. When we, as it
were, relive the past experience in this way we see clearly that no experience
of the ego figured in its content.
Sartre's conclusion is that the ego does not pre-exist recollection but is a
product of recollection. The ego is a kind of retrospective objectification.
Objectifying recollection makes it seem as if the ego were there all along, but
this appearance is illusory, for the ego is not present in consciousness at the
moment when the perception takes place. Consciousness, therefore, at its
basic unreflective level, is nonegological.

3.b The Memory Argument Revisited

We can now see why it was important in our earlier discussion of the memory
argument not to work with the argument in its classical egological
formulation. This formulation invokes reflective memory, that is, memory
with an explicit I-cognition and first-person self-reference. Working with this
formulation invites confusion because the memory argument at its strongest
depends not on an appeal to reflective memory, but rather on an appeal to
non-reflective memory—specifically, to the presence of the subjective side of
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

the original experience in the non-reflective memory as showing that there

must have been a non-reflective reflexive awareness present in the original
experience.
To appreciate this point we can consider three statements of the traditional
memory argument. The first comes from Candrakīrti (who then goes on to
criticize and reject the argument):

Suppose one argued as follows: One has to maintain that there is reflexive
awareness because otherwise, when at a later time, I say, ‘I saw…’ and remember
the remembered object, and when I think, ‘I saw’, there could not be a memory of
the awareness of the object of that thought. (as quoted by Garfield 2006: 203).

The second and third come from Paul Williams, explaining Tsong Khapa's
understanding of the argument (Tsong Khapa follows Candrakīrti in rejecting
the argument):

Tsong Khapa explains, when we remember, the memory image is seen to be

composed of ‘formerly this was seen’ and ‘it was seen by me’. Or, as Tsong
Khapa expressed it elsewhere, when I remember that I truly saw blue there is a
memory of blue and a memory of seeing blue. Thus in the original act there must
have been a sensation of blue and also the sensation of seeing blue.
(Williams 1998: 238).

Notice that Candrakīrti's formulation and the first of Williams' glosses of

Tsong Khapa's formulation are egological in form. As Williams (1998: 237)
observes, the type of memory of concern here is reflective memory. The
second gloss of Tsong Khapa's formulation is nonegological.
Here is my reason for belaboring this distinction. If we use the traditional
egological formulation, then we run the risk of thinking mistakenly that the
memory argument depends specifically on an appeal to reflective memory.
This mistake could lead to the further mistakes of thinking that the memory
argument could be countered with Sartre's argument that an ego-experience
was not present in the original experience, but rather only retrospectively
seems to have been present to the reflective memory, and hence that the
original experience was not self-aware. But, of course, this line of thought
would miss the whole point of the memory argument. The aim of the
argument is not to establish that an ego-experience in Sartre's sense was
EVAN THOMPSON

present in the original experience: on the contrary, it is to establish that the

original experience was self-aware—where self-awareness is understood as an
intransitive reflexivity. (Of course, this kind of reflexive self-awareness Sartre
accepts in the form of his notion of non-positional self-consciousness.) The
argument does not depend on any appeal to reflective memory: on the
contrary, the argument depends fundamentally on considerations about non-
reflective memory: In a non-reflective memory of yesterday's blue sky there is
also a non-reflective memory from within of yesterday's seeing of the blue
sky. Thus the reason to appeal to non-reflective memory in support of
reflexive awareness is that non-reflective memory already automatically
recalls the subjective side of the original experience, without needing any
additional higher-order cognition or reflective memory.

3.c Memory, Ego, Self

If we use the term ‘ego’ in Sartrean fashion to refer to the self as an object for
reflection, then unreflective experience is egoless. For Sartre, however, this
kind of egolessness does not imply that unreflective consciousness lacks
selfhood in any sense. On the contrary, as Sartre states: ‘it is consciousness in
its fundamental ipseity which, under certain conditions, allows the appearance
of the ego as the transcendent phenomenon of that ipseity’ (Sartre 1956: 103).
As Dan Zahavi (2005: 115) notes, Sartre's fundamental move here is to
distinguish between ego-as-object and self-as-subject. Thus, although
unreflective consciousness is egoless, it is not selfless.
In certain respects, however, Sartre's treatment of memory and his
understanding of selfhood are simplistic compared with Husserl's (see
Stawarska 2004). These differences are relevant to the memory argument and
the relation between subjectivity and the self.
On the one hand, Sartre emphasizes fresh memory over distant memory in
his argument for the nonegological conception of consciousness. He relies on
the kind of reproductive remembering that rides on the retention of recent
experience, as when you call back a just-elapsed experience and try to relive
it.10 What this emphasis leaves out are the many other kinds of episodic
memories from the more remote and distant past.
                                                            
10
 See Sartre (1991: 46): ‘For example, I was absorbed just now in my reading. I am going to try to
reconstitute the circumstances of my reading, my attitude, the lines that I was reading. I am thus going to
revive not only these external details but a certain depth of unreflected consciousness, since the objects
could only have been perceived by that consciousness and since they remain relative to it’. 
 SELF‐NO‐SELF? MEMORY AND REFLEXIVE AWARENESS

On the other hand, Sartre juxtaposes remembering an object to reflective

memory of an experience. Only the latter, he suggests, presents past
experience as my experience. What this juxtaposition leaves out is precisely
the Husserlian point that remembering an object already intentionally
implicates the past experience of that object. Indeed, the Husserlian insight is
that the past experience must be intentionally implicated in the recollection of
the object if the object is to retain the phenomenal character of pastness.
Although the intentionally implicated past experience need not be given as
mine in an objectified egological sense (as the experience of my ego), it is
given from within as an experience formerly lived through first-personally,
that is, by me.
For Zahavi, this kind of ‘first-personal givenness’ of consciousness
suffices to make consciousness fundamentally egological rather than
nonegological (see Zahavi 2005: 99–146). To some extent, however, the issue
seems terminological. If ‘ego’ means self-as-object, as it does for Sartre, then
Sartre's nonegological conception seems compatible with Zahavi's insistence
that pre-reflective experience is not lived through anonymously, but rather
first-personally. After all, to maintain, as Sartre does, that ipseity or non-
positional self-awareness defines the very being of consciousness would seem
to imply that consciousness cannot be fundamentally anonymous, but must be
constitutively first-personal.
Of course, we can still ask, what exactly is the status of this ‘I’ or ‘me’?
Here it may be possible to reconcile phenomenology and the Buddhist no-self
paradigm. From a phenomenological perspective, there is no need to suppose
that ‘I’ or ‘me’ corresponds to an enduring entity with an existence separate or
somehow distinct from the stream of mind–body events. Rather, the ‘I’ picks
out the stream from its own self-individuating phenomenal perspective. To
use an Indian turn of phrase, we could say that the stream is fundamentally I-
making (ahaṃkāra).

4. Conclusion

In this paper I have defended the memory argument for reflexive awareness,
and the reflexive awareness thesis as a phenomenological thesis about the
nature of consciousness. At the same time, I have suggested that mounting a
proper defence of the memory argument requires a robust account of memory
and subjectivity that puts pressure on certain versions of the Buddhist no-self
EVAN THOMPSON

(anatta/anātman) doctrine by lessening the distance between the subject and

self.

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 6
Subjectivity, Selfhood and
the Use of the Word ‘I’
JONARDON GANERI

I. Asaṅga and Vasubandhu on Self-Consciousness

and Conscious Attention to Oneself
A well-known Buddhist philosophy of mind has it that conscious experi-
ence is a synthesis of five forms of activity: the processes of registering,
appraising, stereotyping, readying, and consciously attending.1 These phi-
losophers say that the last of these, conscious attention, is relative to a
perceptual modality, so that, for example, consciously attending to what is
being visually registered is different in kind from consciously attending to
what is being registered in touch.2 They say as well that one can also
consciously attend to what is going on in one’s mind. This is a mode of
conscious reflecting (mano-vijñāna); it is a way of being self-aware, of
consciously attending to one’s own psychological state.
To these six varieties of conscious attention Asaṅga adds a seventh, which
he calls simply manas ‘mind’/‘consciousness’, or else ‘defiled mind’ (klista-
˙˙
manas).3 It is, he seems to think, a distinct and more basic mode of being

1 The five so-called skandhas or ‘ingredients’ that combine into individual thoughts or experiences: rūpa,
vedanā, samjñā, samskāra, and vijñāna. For details, see Ganeri (forthcoming).This flexible doctrine is trans-
˙ ˙
formed in various ways by later Buddhist thinkers, beginning with Asaṅga and Vasubandhu in the c. 4th ce.
2 Sad:vijñānadhātavaś caksurādyāśrayā rūpādyālambanāvijñāptayah: (Vasubandhu, Pañcaskandhaka 135).
˙ ˙
3 Thereby adding a new sense for this term, which in its everyday use in Abhidharma is simply
synonymous with conscious attention (citta, vijñāna). Kramer (2008) translates klista-manas as ‘notion of I’,
˙˙
and observes that the incorporation of this new concept represents a modification in the traditional system
of the five skandhas, a modification that is evident in Sthiramati’s commentary on Vasubandhu’s
Pañcaskandhaka. She says: ‘In particular the function of vijñāna-skandha—the original role of which was
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 177

self-aware.4 Asaṅga argues that there must exist a non-perceptual modality of

self-consciousness, which is distinctively associated with what is ‘mine’, as
well as being the support of conscious reflection, and something that con-
tributes to the persistence of one’s sense of self. Itself ethically neutral, it is
nevertheless responsible for the four vices to do with the self:
[Question:] How does one know that manas in the sense of ‘defiled mind’ (klista-
˙˙
manas) exists?
[Answer:] Without it, there could be no uncompounded ignorance, i.e. a basic
ignorance not yet associated with all the diverse defilements but standing as their
base. Besides, conscious reflecting (manovijñāna) must also have a simultaneous
support, as do the sensory consciousnesses which have such supports in their
material organs. Such a simultaneous support can only be the ‘defiled mind’. Also,
the very etymology of manas has to do with ‘mine’, which can be explained only by
the ‘defiled mind’. Also, without it there would be no difference between the non-
identifying trance and the cessation trance, for only the latter is free of defiled mind.
Also, the sense of an existence of self is always existent in nonsaintly states: there
must be some special consciousness to account for the persistence of this sense. The
defiled mind is always defiled by the false view of self, pride of self, love of self, and
ignorance (about self); but is itself ethically neutral.5

Asaṅga’s brother Vasubandhu claims that this mode of being self-aware

undergoes a ‘transformation’ into what gets described as a self.6 He says

actual perception—was widened through the inclusion of subliminal forms of mind, like the ‘store mind’
(ālaya-vijñāna) and the “notion of I” (klista-manas). The strong emphasis placed by Sthiramati on vijñāna is
˙˙
evident, for instance, when he states that ordinary people—those who have not perceived reality—regard
the vijñāna as the self (ātman), whereas they view the other four skandhas as “mine” (ātmı̄ya)’ (2008: 155).
She adds that ‘[i]nterestingly, Sthiramati also mentions alternative concepts of the self, for example that of
the Sāmkhya tradition. According to his understanding, the Sāmkhyas only regard rūpa-skandha [matter]
˙ ˙
as ātmı̄ya, and all the other four skandhas as ātman. He thus claims that for the Sāmkhyas the self is not only
˙
identical to vijñāna but also consists of the other factors accompanying the mind (caitasika)’ (2008: 155).
Galloway (1980) translates klista-manas as ‘passional consciousness’, and derives interesting information
˙˙
about the notion from Gunaprabhā’s commentary on the Pañcaskandhaka. See below. Dreyfus and
˙
Thomson (2007: 112) translate klista-manas as ‘afflictive mentation’, and comment that ‘[t]his is the inborn
˙˙
sense of self that arises from the apprehension of the store-consciousness as being a self. From a Buddhist
point of view, however, this sense of self is fundamentally mistaken. It is a mental imposition of unity
where there is in fact only the arising of a multiplicity of interrelated physical and mental events’.
4 See Galloway (1978) for a detailed argument that as a Yogācāra technical term, manas should be
translated as ‘consciousness’ rather than neutrally through its cognate in English, ‘mind’.
5 Mahāyānasamgraha 1.7; trans. Anacker in Potter (2003) from the extant Chinese and Tibetan
˙
translations.
6 Galloway (1980: 18) reports from Gunaprabhā’s commentary on Vasubandhu’s Pañcaskandhaka:
˙
[Vasubandhu:] ‘In reality, the consciousness (manas) has the storehouse perception for its phenomenon.’
178 JONARDON GANERI

that manas—‘consciousness’—is a way of being aware, associating it with

the activity of ‘thinking’ (manana). It takes the store-consciousness (ālaya-
vijñāna) as its foundation. It undergoes a transformation into something that
we metaphorically call a self, but this transformation is the work of cognitive
fabrication, and there is in fact no such thing:
The metaphors of ‘self’ and ‘items’ which develop in so many ways take place in the
transformation of consciousness.
Dependent on [the store-consciousness] there develops a consciousness called
manas, having that as its basis, and having the nature of ‘thinking’.
This transformation of consciousness is a cognitive fabrication, and as it is cogni-
tively fabricated it does not exist.7

How are we to make sense of what is going on here? The import of the use
of the terms ‘conceptual fabrication’ (vikalpa) and ‘metaphorical designation’
(upacāra), in connection with the self, is that the end-result of the transforma-
tion of pre-attentive self-consciousness is the sort of first-person psychologi-
cal judgment one would express in the words ‘I am F’. The transformation
has made the self into a conceptual thought-content (vikalpa), but the
expression of that thought-content uses a word, ‘I’ for example, in at most
a ‘metaphorical’ sense, or at any rate some usage that is not one of genuine
literal reference. (As I will point out below, upacāra is not quite metaphor, but
nearer to metonymy.)
Let me represent the picture schematically. The claim is that three distinct
phenomena are involved in self-consciousness:
1. Conscious attention to one’s own states of mind (manovijñāna).
This must have a ‘support’ (āśraya). The support is:
2. ‘Self-consciousness’ (manas)—a pre-attentive mode of being self-aware.

[Gunaprabhā:] This means that it phenomenalizes [sees] the storehouse perception as a self.[Vasubandhu:] ‘It
˙
is that which is associated with the constant delusion of self (ātmamoha), view of self (ātmadrsti), egoism of self
˙˙˙
(ātmamāna), and lust for self (ātmarāga), and so on.’[Gunaprabhā:] It is explained as operating always, and
˙
arises as good (kuśala), bad (akuśala), and indifferent. His saying ‘It is of one class’ means that it has a
passionate (klista) nature. ‘It is continually produced’ means that it is momentary.
˙˙
7 Trimśikākārikā: ātmadharmopacāro hi vividho ya pravartate | vijñānaparināme ’sau || Tvk la-c || tasya
˙ ˙
vyāvrtirarhatve tadāśritya pravartate | tadālambam manonāma vijñānam mananātmakam || Tvk 5 || vijñāna-
˙ ˙ ˙
parināmo ’yam vikalpo yadvikalpyate | tena tannāsti || Tvk 17a-c ||. The translation is from Anacker
˙ ˙
(1984), slightly modified.
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 179

This is subject to ‘transformation’ (parināma). What it is transformed into is:

˙
3. First-person psychological judgment—thinking ‘I am F’, for some
psychological predicate F. The use of the word ‘I’ here, though, is
in some sense not a genuine referring use.
It will help if I begin by stating the conclusions for which I want to argue.
I will argue that these claims should be understood as follows. My possession
of a first-person perspective, a perspective on my own mental life, has to be
underwritten. What underwrites it is the fact that my mental life presents
itself to me, in a primitive and pre-attentive way, as being mine. This same
primitive mode of being self-aware is rendered in such a way that it seems to
justify me in making assertions of the form ‘I am F’. In fact, it is never the
case that assertions of such a form are true of a self. Uses of ‘I’ never literally
refer to a self. I will argue that this final claim is ambiguous, and distinguish
the reading Vasubandhu wishes to give it from another, in my view more
promising, idea.

2. Pre-Attentive Consciousness: manas and Mineness

The proposal we are examining might be expressed as the conjunction of
three propositions:
[1] There is a pre-attentive mode of self-awareness through which my
experiences present themselves to me as mine.
[2] First person psychological judgment draws upon additional concep-
tual resources, ones not available on the basis of [1] alone.
[3] First person psychological judgments do not actually involve genuine
reference to a self.
Let me examine these propositions in turn.
The ability, not just to have a world in view, but also to reflect upon the
fact that one does, seems to be an essential part of what it means to be
conscious. Sidney Shoemaker says that
It is essential for a philosophical understanding of the mental that we appreciate that
there is a first person perspective on it, a distinctive way mental states present
themselves to the subjects whose states they are, and that an essential part of the
180 JONARDON GANERI

philosophical task is to give an account of mind which makes intelligible the

perspective mental subjects have on their own mental lives
(Shoemaker 1996: 157).

It is to this task that our Buddhists address themselves when they say that
conscious attention to one’s own mental life (mano-vijñāna) must have a
support, which they claim is a pre-attentive mode of being self-aware
(manas). I think that the point of this argument is easy enough to understand
as long as we remember that it is impossible to think about one of one’s own
mental states, a particular feeling of hope for example, and yet not be sure
whose mental state it is. There is no question of having a first person
perspective on one’s mental life, without that mental life presenting itself
to one as one’s own. In a much-quoted passage, Peter Strawson says:
It would make no sense to think or say: This inner experience is occurring, but is it
occurring to me? (This feeling is anger; but is it I who am feeling it?) Again, it
would make no sense to think or say: I distinctively remember that inner experi-
ence occurring, but did it occur to me? (I remember that terrible feeling of loss; but
was it I who felt it?) There is nothing that one can thus encounter or recall in the
field of inner experience such that there can be any question of one’s applying
criteria of subject-identity to determine whether the encountered or recalled
experience belongs to oneself—or to someone else.
(P. F. Strawson 1966: 165)

If I cannot be mistaken about whose inner experience it is that I am

experiencing, this is because no identification of a subject, and so no
possibility of mis-identification, is involved at all. What I am suggesting,
then, is that our Buddhist philosophers explain the ‘immunity to error
through misidentification’ (Shoemaker 1984) of self-ascriptions, by ac-
knowledging that when my experience presents itself to me as my own,
no representation of myself as a subject takes place. Asaṅga and Vasubandhu
postulate, instead, the existence of a primitive mode of self-awareness, a
basic awareness of the contents of my inner life (my ‘store-consciousness’) as
mine. And this, in turn, is what makes it possible for me to have a first-
person, rather than merely a third-person, perspective on my mental life.
In Sartre’s theory of consciousness, I might note in passing, there is a
proposal that is in some respects comparable. Sartre speaks of a pre-reflective
self-awareness, which ‘has no need at all of a reflecting consciousness in
order to be conscious of itself. It simply does not posit itself as an object’
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 181

(Sartre 1957: 45). Dan Zahavi has redescribed it as ‘an immersed non-
objectifying self-aquaintance’ (Zahavi 2005: 21). Sartre argues that an infinite
regress will ensue if such a mode of self-acquaintance is not acknowledged,
and it is interesting to observe that we find the infinite regress argument used
too by one of Vasubandhu’s immediate followers, Diṅnāga, in a defense of
reflexivism (Ganeri 1999; see also the contributions by Evan Thompson and
Mark Siderits to this volume).

3. First Person Psychological Judgment

Vasubandhu speaks of a ‘transformation’ of basic self-awareness into explicit
self-ascription, a transformation based on conceptual fabrication (vikalpa)
and justifying only a ‘metaphorical’ use (upacāra) of the language of self.
What is difficult is to understand how it can be thought wrong to make the
transition from being aware of oneself as being in a certain mental state to
explicitly asserting that one is. Vasubandhu’s thesis is that this transition
demands a new conceptual resource (one which is not in fact available). Is
that thesis true?
Zahavi, for one, does not see any difficulty with this transition. He says:
Contrary to what some of the self-sceptics are claiming, one does not need to
conceive of the self as something standing apart from or above experiences, nor
does one need to conceive of the relation between the self and experience as an
external relation of ownership. It is also possible to identify this pre-reflective
sense of mineness with a minimal, core, sense of self . . . . In other words, the idea
is to link an experiential sense of self to the particular first-personal givenness
that characterizes our experiential life; it is this first-personal givenness that
constitutes the mineness or ipseity of experience. Thus, the self is not something
that stands opposed to the stream of consciousness, but is, rather, immersed in
conscious life.
(Zahavi 2005: 125)

Zahavi’s ‘minimal self’ precisely consists in a ‘pre-reflective sense of mine-

ness’, and it appears to follow that, to refer to oneself in the first person,
nothing more is required than that one’s experience be given ‘immediately,
noninferentially and noncriterially’ (2005: 124) as mine. He also says, how-
ever, that ‘this form of egocentricity must be distinguished from any explicit
182 JONARDON GANERI

I-consciousness. I am not (yet) confronted with a thematic or explicit

awareness of the experience as being owned by or belonging to myself.
The mineness is not something attended to; it simply figures as a subtle
background presence’ (2005: 124). So there is, after all, a transition, but it is a
transition which involves only paying attention to the mineness inherent in
my experience, not in the exercise of any new conceptual resource.8
I think that Vasubandhu’s response would simply be that if someone
wants to use the words ‘minimal self’ as a synonym for the manas, then
nobody will object to him doing so. On the other hand, if the implication is
that the ‘minimal self’ does what a self is meant to do, then it is too minimal
to count. It seems to me that the minimal self does not do one of the things
that a respectable concept of self must, and that is to individuate thinkers. It
is true of you and me alike that our experience is given to us with an
immersed mineness. The property ‘being a thought of one’s own’ is a
property like ‘being a divisor of itself’, which is equally true of every
number; the reflexive pronoun is just a place-holder. Zahavi says that ‘the
particular first-person givenness of the experience makes it mine and dis-
tinguishes it for me from whatever experiences others might have’ (2005:
124). That choice of words suggests that he thinks that first-person givenness
is individuative of individual selves.9
François Recanati (Recanati 2007) has an interesting account of the
transition we are interested in. He draws a distinction between implicit
and explicit de se thoughts, a de se thought being ‘a de re thought about
oneself, that involves a particular mode of presentation, namely a first person
mode of presentation’ (2007: 169). He continues:
As Frege wrote in ‘The Thought’, ‘everyone is presented to himself in a particular
and primitive way, in which he is presented to no one else’. I call the ‘special and

8 Indeed, in Zahavi (1999), Zahavi makes it a ‘minimal demand to any proper theory of self-
awareness’ that it ‘be able to explain the peculiar features characterising the subject-use of “I”; that is,
no matter how complex or differentiated the structure of self-awareness is ultimately shown to be, if
the account given is unable to preserve the difference between the first-person and third-person
perspectives, unable to capture its referential uniqueness, it has failed as an explanation of self-
awareness’ (1999: 13).
9 Joel Krueger (this volume) seems to share my reservation about the selfhood of the ‘minimal self’.
To put the point in an Indian vocabulary, the ‘minimal self’ is somewhat akin to the impersonal Advaitic
ātman, present equally in all. Zahavi sometimes, however, appeals to an embodiment criterion, rather
than to first-person givenness per se, as what individuates distinct minimal selves, and that would
certainly adequately distinguish the notion from the Advaita conception.
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 183

primitive’ mode of presentation which occurs in first person thoughts ‘ego’ or

rather ‘egox’ where ‘x’ stands for the name of the person thinking the thought.
(2007: 170).

Explicit de se thoughts are de se thoughts ‘the content of which involves an

“identification component” through which the object thought about is
identified as oneself’. When a subject looks at themselves in a mirror and
thinks ‘My legs are crossed’, they identify themselves under the concept ego,
and ascribe to themselves a property: I am that person whose legs are crossed.
An implicit de se thought involves no such identification. Recanati says that
‘implicit de se thoughts are identification-free, and they are de se only exter-
nally: no concept ego occurs as part of the lekton [roughly, the content]. The
lekton is a personal proposition, without any constituent corresponding to
the person to whom a property is ascribed’ (2007: 176). What this means is
that in an implicit de se thought, one simply thinks of one’s legs as crossed, a
thought that is true because it is indeed one’s own legs which are crossed.
(The distinction is reflected in language: contrast the anaphoric construction
‘He expects that he will be late’ with the gerundival construction ‘He expects
to be late’. See also Perry 1998.) Recanati’s point is that it is precisely because
no identification of a subject is involved that implicit de se thoughts are
immune to error through misidentification.
Recanati argues that the concept ego involved in the notion of an
explicit de se thought is itself explained by this notion of an implicit de se
thought. He says:
The notion of an implicit de se thought in which the self is not represented is
important . . . , to understand the concept of self that occurs in explicit de se
thoughts. Indeed, the ability to entertain implicit de se thoughts is arguably a
necessary condition for anyone to evolve the concept ego. That is so because, as
suggested by Evans, Perry, and myself following them, the concept ego is best
construed as a repository for information gained in a first person way . . . Now a
piece of information is gained in the first person way if and only if it is the content
of an implicit de se thought. It follows that the first step in an elucidation of the
concept of self is a correct analysis of the functioning of implicit de se thoughts.
(2007: 177).

The notion of manas, as introduced by Asaṅga and developed by Vasu-

bandhu, seems to me to be rather close in spirit to Recanati’s notion of
implicit de se thought. It certainly contains no representation of the self, and
184 JONARDON GANERI

it has as its ‘foundation’ (ālambana) all the information contained in the

store-consciousness. It is a first personal way of thinking about (manana) that
information. The description ‘repository for information gained in a first
person way’ might seem like a very good description of the joint contribu-
tion of manas and store-consciousness.10
Moreover, as we have seen, Vasubandhu speaks of a ‘transformation’ of
manas into a concept of self, and that echoes with the claim Recanati is
making about the evolution of the concept ego. Finally, Recanati claims
that the ability to entertain implicit de se thoughts is a necessary—though
not necessarily a sufficient—condition for the evolution of the concept ego,
and this too is something Asaṅga and Vasubandhu are keen to stress; indeed,
it is the primary motivation for introducing the notion of manas in the first
place. For, as Asaṅga says in the Yogācārabhūmi, ‘That [manas] has the mode
of taking the store-consciousness as its object and conceiving it as “I am
[this]” (asmiti) and “[this is] I” (aham iti)’ (quoted in Waldron 2002: 42).
Note that the concept ego, as a repository of information gained in a first
person way, does individuate thinkers, for no two such repositories will be
alike. This concept of self is much less ‘minimal’ than Zahavi’s.
So where is the difference? Both agree that there are explicit de se
thoughts involving the concept ego, but while Recanati thinks that the
truth conditions of such thoughts are such that they are often true, Vasu-
bandhu thinks that they are always false. He thinks this because he thinks
that the concept ego, which has certainly evolved in the manner described,
is an empty concept, like the concept phlogiston or the concept pegasus.

10 The history of the Yogācāra concept of the store-consciousness is rather complicated. Originally
conceived merely as a vehicle for the perpetuation of mental forces when the normal six types of
awareness are absent, it was a technical solution to what would otherwise be a difficulty in the Yogācāra
theory of individual persistence. Dreyfus and Thompson (2007: 112) say of it that ‘[t]his continuously
present subliminal consciousness is posited by some of the Yogācāra thinkers to provide a sense of
continuity in the person over time. It is the repository of all the basic habits, tendencies and propensities
(including those that persist from one life to the next) accumulated by the individual’. Reaffirming this
description in his article in this volume, Dreyfus offers the translation ‘basic consciousness’, and discusses
an illuminating range of associations and resonances.The detailed studies by Lambert Schmithausen
(1987) and Hartmut Buescher (2008) have revealed much greater complexity in the use of the notion in
early Yogācāra than scholars had previously acknowledged. Schmithausen comments that ‘it may well be
that ālayavijñāna was, initially, conceived as a kind of ‘gap-bridger’, but hardly in such a way that its
occurrence in ordinary states had been denied’ (1987: }2.13.6). Items in the store do not themselves carry
a feeling of mineness, but ground the feeling of mineness which attaches itself to the stream’s conscious
self-attention. They comprise a sort of database for the mind, information which can be drawn upon in
the activity of bringing the states of the stream into conscious attention.
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 185

Our Buddhists think that the evolution of the concept ego brings with it all
manner of moral defilements, and one form of justification for that claim is
that the concept rests in this way on an error. Sthiramati’s comment on the
first of the 30 Verses bears the point out: he says that the concept of self
presents only an apparent (nirbhāsa) referent, just as the perception of
someone with an eye-disease presents only apparent hairs and circles. It is
‘metaphorically designated’ (upacaryate) because it is said to be there when it
is not, as if one were to use the word ‘cow’ when there is an ox. Sthiramati’s
example, incidentally, shows that the notion of upacāra is much closer to
metonymy than to metaphor, as traditionally understood.11
With P. F. Strawson’s assertion that ‘no use whatever of any criteria of
personal identity is required to justify [a person’s] use of the pronoun “I” to
refer to the subject’ (P. F. Strawson 1966: 165), Vasubandhu would appear
to dissent. For his view seems to be that the use of the pronoun ‘I’ never
refers to a subject of experience. Strawson’s point is that we don’t need any
extra conceptual resource in order to make explicit self-references, and in
particular we don’t need a criterion of identity. The pronoun ‘I’ is not a
term which we can correctly use only if we have successfully identified its
referent, because if it were then there would be the possibility of error
through misidentification relative to it. Strawson infers that ‘I’ refers to its
subject without there being a criterion of identity. Perhaps what Vasu-
bandhu would do would be to agree with this argument but contrapose it.
His point would then be that all genuine reference involves the identification
of a referent, and given that there is no question of such an identification in
the case of the first person, the pronoun ‘I’ cannot be a genuine referring
term. In saying that it is instead a ‘metaphor’ (upacāra), there seems to be a
gesture at the possibility of a different, non-referential, account of its use. To
say ‘I feel hopeful’ is, it might to be thought, to speak non-referentially of the
existence of a hope which presents itself pre-attentively as mine. I will argue
that, although this is not actually Vasubandhu’s strategy, it is nevertheless a
viable one.

11 tam ātmādinirbhāsam rūpādinirbhāsam ca tasmād vikalpād bahirbhūtam ivopādāyātmādyupacāro rūpādid-

haropacāraś cānādikālikah: pravartate vināpi bāhyenātmanā dharmaiś ca | tadyathā taimirikasya keśondukādyupa-
cāra iti | yac ca yatra nāsti tat tatropacaryate | tad yathā bāhike gauh: | (Sthiramati, Trimśikāś-vijñapti-bhāsya;
˙ ˙
see Buescher 2007).
186 JONARDON GANERI

4. Two Uses of ‘I’

Can one hear an echo of the Buddhist idea in the following remark?
One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use
of the word ‘I’, particularly when it is used in representing immediate experience,
as in ‘I can see a red patch’. It would be instructive to replace this way of speaking
by another in which immediate experience would be represented without using
the personal pronoun.
(Wittgenstein 1975: 88)

In another place, Wittgenstein speaks of ‘two different cases in the use of the
word “I” (or “my”)’, the ‘use as object’ and the ‘use as subject’ (1960: 66–7).
The ‘use as object’ is the use to which it is put when we refer to ourselves as
human beings, embodied entities in a public space, the use it has when, for
example, one person says to another, ‘I am just going to the shops to get the
paper’, or ‘I have twisted my ankle’. Having distinguished between these
two uses, one strategy would be to identify one of these uses as the primary
use, and analyze the other use as being in some way derivative upon the first.
Indeed, it is more in keeping with Indian theory about non-literal language
to speak in this way of primary and derivative uses, rather than in terms of a
distinction between literal and metaphorical use. The derivative use is
metonymic rather than metaphorical: that is, the term is used to refer to
something else, which stands in some relation to the primary referent.
Among the contemporaries of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu are Vaiśesika phi-
˙
losophers, who argue that the primary use of ‘I’ is to refer to a self (ātman),
and that its use to refer to oneself as an embodied being, in statements like
‘I am fat’, is an act of derivative reference, that is, reference to something
which stands in an ‘is the body of’ relation to the primary reference.12
A variant on this approach is advocated by Galen Strawson. Strawson
argues that the two uses are both genuinely referential, and neither is
primary, in short, that ‘I’ is not univocal. One use is to refer to what he
describes as a ‘thin subject’, a thin subject being ‘an inner thing of some sort
that does not and cannot exist at any given time unless it is having experi-
ence at that time’ (2008: 156; cf. 2009: 331–8). The other use is to refer to
‘the human being considered as a whole’:

12 See the discussion under Vaiśesika-sūtra 3.2.9–14.

˙
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 187

Are we thin subjects? In one respect, of course, we are thick subjects, human beings
considered as a whole. In this respect we are, in being subjects, things that can yawn
and scratch. In another respect, though, we are in being subjects of experience no
more whole human beings than hands or hearts: we are—literally—inner things, thin
subjects, no more things that can yawn or scratch than eyebrows or thoughts . . . —
But ‘What then am I?’ Am I two different sort of things, a thin subject and a thick
subject? This is ridiculous . . . My answer is that ‘I’ is not univocal. We move naturally
between conceiving of ourselves primarily as a human being and primarily as some
sort of inner subject (we do not of course naturally conceive of ourselves as a thin
subject). Sometimes we mean to refer to the one, sometimes to the other; sometimes
our semantic intention hovers between both, sometimes it embraces both.
(G. Strawson 2008: 157–8)

Elsewhere, G. Strawson (2007) is clear that the relation between the two
uses is one of metonymy, and indeed that the underlying relation is one of
whole to part:
I think that we do at different times successfully use ‘I’ to refer to different things, to
human beings considered as a whole and to selves. In this respect the word ‘I’ is like
the word ‘castle’. Sometimes ‘castle’ is used to refer to the castle proper, sometimes
it is used to refer to the ensemble of the castle and the grounds and associated
buildings located within the perimeter wall, sometimes it can be taken either way.
The same goes for ‘I’, but ‘I’ is perhaps even more flexible, for it can sometimes be
taken to refer to both the self and the whole human being, indifferently. Our
thought (our semantic intention) is often unspecific as between the two.
(G. Strawson 2007: 543)

Vasubandhu, although he does not say so here, would perhaps be content to

endorse as ‘conventional’ the use of the first person in statements like ‘I am
going to the shops’, a use governed by the token-reflexive rule that ‘I’ refers
to the speaker. When ‘I’ is used in the expression of first person psychologi-
cal judgment, however, his claim is that the reference to an inner self fails,
that this use erroneously imports a subject-predicate model and imposes it
upon one’s inner experience. In other words, his view of this use of ‘I’ is that
there is a combination of metonymy and error-theory. When ‘I’ is used
metonymically to refer to the inner subject, something goes wrong, and
what goes wrong is that there is nothing at the far end of the metonymic
relationship for it to refer to. This, indeed, is a view which G. Strawson
(2007: 543) considers and rejects:
188 JONARDON GANERI

If it turns out that the best thing to say about selves is that there are no such things,
then the best thing to say about ‘I’ may well be that it is univocal after all, and that
the apparent doubleness of reference of ‘I’ is just the echo in language of a
metaphysical illusion. If this is right, then ‘I’ is not in fact used to refer to selves
as distinct from human beings even when its users intend to be making some such
reference and believe that they are doing so. On this view, the semantic intentions
of ‘I’-users sometimes incorporate a mistake about how things are. I disagree.

According to the interpretation of Vasubandhu we have reached, then, ‘I’

does not function as an expression of genuine reference. but is rather one of
disingenuous reference: it is a referring expression without a referent, its use
creating the false impression that there is one. That is, I suggest, the best way
to understand Vasubandhu’s claim that it is a ‘metaphor’.
There is another possibility, though. It might be the case that the mistake
which ‘I’-users make is not a metaphysical one, but rather a mistake about
the semantic role of ‘I’ itself. Perhaps what goes wrong in the use of ‘I’ in
representing immediate experience is that speakers take themselves to be
making a referential use of an expression, and in doing so mistake its true
logical role. It would be as if someone thought that ‘perhaps’ is a referring
expression, and then imagined that there must be something in the world
that it designates. This view is attractive, because it does not make the
argument hinge on a prior metaphysical claim about the reality of selves,
which then stands in need of further, extra-linguistic, justification. Rather,
once we are clear about the logical role of ‘I’, we see that looking for a
referent is as misguided as looking for the referent of ‘perhaps’. And indeed,
this is what Wittgenstein seems to say about the ‘use as subject’ of the word
‘I’, its use in a sentence such as ‘I have a pain’. For Wittgenstein, denying
that ‘I’, when used as in first person psychological judgments, is a referring
expression, is the only way to explain the phenomenon of immunity to
error through misidentification:
[T]here is no question of recognizing a person when I say I have a toothache. To
ask ‘are you sure that it’s you who have pains?’ would be nonsensical . . . And now
this way of stating our idea suggests itself: that it is as impossible that in making the
statement ‘I have toothache’ I should have mistaken another person for myself, as it
is to moan with pain by mistake, having mistaken someone else for me. . . . To say,
‘I have pain’ is no more a statement about a particular person than moaning is.
(1960: 66–7)
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 189

The suggestion that there is a non-referential account of the use of ‘I’ was
developed in one direction by Anscombe (Anscombe 1975). Anscombe,
however, does not distinguish two uses, and argues that the first person does
not refer, even in cases like ‘I have a broken arm’. Other writers have tried,
following the lead of P. F. Strawson, to argue that immunity of error does
not commit one to a non-referential account of ‘I’, and indeed to reconcile
immunity with the idea that ‘I’ refers univocally to the embodied human
being (see for example Campbell 2004; McDowell 2009). In an insightful
remark about Anscombe, Campbell suggests that the best way to understand
her position is as claiming that the patterns of use involving the first person
do not require justification in a semantic foundation:
An alternative reaction would, of course, be to say that we ought to abandon the
search for a semantic foundation for our use of the first person. There are only the
patterns of use, and no explanation to be given of them. This was essentially
G. E. M. Anscombe’s position in her famous paper, ‘The First Person’, in which
she claimed that the first person does not refer. This claim is generally rejected,
simply because philosophers have thought that when there is a use of the first
person, there is, after all, always someone around who can be brought forward as
the referent. But this is an extremely superficial response to Anscombe’s point. Her
claim is best understood as making the point that the ascription of reference to the
first person is empty or idle; it does no explanatory work.
(Campbell 2004: 18)

I have argued at length elsewhere that something along these lines is just
the move made by the Mādhyamika philosopher Candrakı̄rti (Ganeri 2007,
ch. 7). His position, I have claimed there, is that we can give a fully
explanatory use-theoretic account of the role of the first person in perfor-
mances of self-appropriation, an account in which it is otiose to assign a
reference. Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, on the other hand, say that in the
movement from a pre-attentive self-awareness to an explicit use of ‘I’, a
transformation of some sort is involved, one which involves conceptual
work (vikalpa), and that the use of ‘I’ is metaphorical or metonymic. Their
view is that the use of ‘I’ is indeed referential, and that the use as object and
the use as subject are to be understood as making reference to, on the one
hand, the human being, and on the other, an inner subject of experience,
this second use being derivative from the first. There is, however, no subject
of experience, and so the subjective use of the first person is an error.
190 JONARDON GANERI

5. Conclusion
I have argued that the new theory of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu consists in an
account of the first-person perspective. Their further claim that the first
person itself, the word ‘I’, is used ‘metaphorically’ in reporting the contents
of the first-person perspective, rests on a prior commitment to the non-
existence of an inner subject of experience. Only this permits them to claim
that its use is one of what I have called ‘disingenuous reference’. I have
distinguished a different strategy, which is to begin with the observation that
such reports are immune to error through misidentification, and to argue
that it follows that in the proper account of the use in first person psycho-
logical judgments of the word ‘I’, the assignment of a referent is explanato-
rily superfluous. Some of the parts of this strategy are to be seen at work in
various thinkers. Anscombe argues that ‘I’ is not a referring expression, but
does not distinguish the two uses of the term. Candrakı̄rti explains the use of
‘I’ in a way that makes the assignment of a referent superfluous, through an
appeal to the thought that its role has to do with self-appropriation (upā-
dāna), but he does not base this claim on the phenomenon of immunity.
The full strategy being defended here emerges only as a ‘fusion’ of compo-
nents drawn from our various sources.13

References
Anacker, S. (1984), Seven Works of Vasubandhu, the Buddhist Psychological Doctor,
Religions of Asia Series (Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass).
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1975), ‘The first person’, in Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), Mind
and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Buescher, H. (2007), Sthiramati’s Trimśikāvijñaptibhāsya: Critical Editions of the San-
˙ ˙
skrit text and its Tibetan Translation, Sitzungsberichte / Österreichische Akademie

13 In his contribution to this volume, Matthew MacKenzie argues that the performativist model
which I find in Candrakı̄rti needs to be supplemented rather with embodied and enactivist elements.
Such a move “fuses” the Buddhist theory with ideas drawn from recent phenomenological literature, a
theme of many of the contributions to this volume. I have tried instead to ‘fuse’ the Buddhist theory with
elements taken from the recent analytical tradition, and the existence of both such possibilities suggests to
me that Indian theory might well serve to create the intellectual space for a rapprochment between those
hitherto separated strands of Western thought.
 SUBJECTIVITY, SELFHOOD AND THE USE OF THE WORD ‘I’ 191

der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse (Wien : Verlag der Öster-

reichischen Akademie der Wissenachaften).
—— (2008), The Inception of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda (Wien: Verlag der Österrei-
chischen Akademie der Wissenachaften).
Campbell, J. (2004), ‘What is it to Know what “I” Refers to?’ The Monist 87.2: 206–18.
Dreyfus, G. and Thompson, E. (2007), ‘Asian Perspectives: Indian theories of
mind’, in Morris Moscovitch, Evan Thompson, and Philip David Zelazo
(eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press).
Galloway, B. (1978), ‘Vijñāna, samjñā and manas’, The Middle Way 53.2: 72–5.
˙
——(1980), ‘A Yogācāra Analysis of the Mind, Based on the Vijñāna Section of
Vasubandhu’s Pañcaskhandaprakarana with Gunaprabha’s Commentary’, Journal
˙ ˙
of the International Association for Buddhist Studies 3.2: 7–20.
Ganeri, J. (1999), ‘Self-Intimation, Memory and Personal Identity’, Journal of Indian
Philosophy 27.5: 469–83.
——(2007), The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of Self and Practices of Truth in
Indian Ethics and Epistemology (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
——(forthcoming), Mind’s Own Nature: The Reconciliation of Naturalism with The
first person perspective, ch. 7.
Kramer, J. (2008), ‘On Sthiramati’s Pañcaskandhakavibhāsā: a Preliminary Survey’,
˙
Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism: Sambhāsā. 27: 149–72.
˙ ˙
McDowell, J. (2009), ‘Referring to Oneself’, in The Engaged Intellect (Cambridge.
MA: Harvard University Press).
Perry, J. (1998), ‘Myself and I’, in Marcelo Stamm (ed.), Philosophie in Synthetischer
Absicht (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta).
Potter, K. H. (2003), Buddhist Philosophy from 350 to 600 A.D., Encyclopedia of Indian
Philosophies, vol. 9 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers).
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Oxford University Press).
Sartre, J. (1957), The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness
(New York: Noonday Press).
Schmithausen, L. (1987), Alayavijñaña: On the Origin and the Early Development of a
Central Concept of Yogācāra Philosophy, Studia Philologica Buddhica, 2 v. (Tokyo:
International Institute for Buddhist Studies).
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——(1996), The First-Person Perspective and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge
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192 JONARDON GANERI

Strawson, G. (2007), ‘Selves’, in Brian P. McLaughlin and Ansgar Beckermann

(eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University
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——(2008), Real Materialism and Other Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
——(2009), Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Strawson, P. F. (1966), The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure
Reason’ (London: Methuen).
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 7
‘I Am of the Nature of Seeing’:
Phenomenological Reflections on
the Indian Notion of Witness-
Consciousness
WOLFGANG FASCHING

1. Introduction

Irrespective of the often considerable differences between their metaphysical

doctrines, many of the major philosophical schools of India agree in their
basic assumption that, in order to become aware of one's own true nature, one
has to inhibit one's self-consciousness in the usual sense, namely one's ‘ego-
sense’ (ahaṃkāra, literally ‘I-maker’). The normal way we are aware of
ourselves—that is, our self-awareness as a distinct psychophysical entity with
particular characteristics and abilities, formed by a personal history, standing
in manifold relations to other things and persons, etc.—is in this view really
the construction of a pseudo-self that obscures what we really are. One has to
come to realize with regard to all aspects of one's personality that ‘this is not
mine; this am not I; this is not the Self of me’, as the Buddha puts it (Saṃyutta
Nikāya XXII.59, Rhys Davids/Woodward 1972–79, vol. III: 60) and as, for
example, Advaitins and proponents of classical Yoga could affirm without
reservation.
Yet, whilst for Buddhism this means that the spiritual aim is to realize that
it is an illusion that something like a self exists at all, for ‘orthodox’ schools
such as Advaita Vedānta or Sāṃkhya and Yoga, liberation lies, on the
contrary, in becoming aware of the true self (ātman or puruṣa).
In this paper, I would like to cast, from a phenomenological point of view,
some reflections on what this overcoming of the ego-sense strived for by these
traditions could possibly mean, and will try to vindicate the view of Advaita
Vedānta that it does not amount to a dissolution of oneself into a mere flux of
substrate-less transient phenomena, but rather to a realization of one's self as
something that changelessly underlies this flux.1
This ‘self’ is of course radically different from what we normally
experience as ‘ourselves’: It has no qualities at all, can never become an
object of consciousness (but is nonetheless immediately self-revealed), is
identical neither to the body nor to the mind (qua mental goings-on we can
introspectively observe), and neither does, nor wants, anything.
What should this be? It is characterized as the ‘seer’ (draṣṭā) or ‘witness’
(sākṣin)—that is, as that which sees (that which is conscious). Yet this is not
supposed to mean that the self is a ‘something’ thatperforms the seeing or is in
a state of seeing: Rather, it is, as Advaita Vedānta (just as, e.g. Sāṃkhya)
stresses, in explicit contrast to Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika, nothing but seeing
(consciousness) itself. ‘The perceiver’, as, for example, the classical Advaitin
Śaṅkara says, ‘is indeed nothing but eternal perception. And it is not [right]
that perception and perceiver are different’ (Upadeśasāhasrī II.2.79,
Mayeda 1992: 241; addition in brackets by Mayeda). Sākṣin is, as Tara
Chatterjee formulates, ‘the never-to-be-objectified principle of awareness
present in every individual’ (Chatterjee 1982: 341).
So the claim against the Buddhists is not that there has to be some entity
in addition to, and behind or beyond, our experiential life as its substrate, but
that there is a stable element within it—yet not as some invariant content or
content-constellation we could experience (such a thing is indeed not to be
found), but as the very process of experiencing itself, as the permanence of
‘witnessing’, in which everything we experience has its being-experienced,
and which is the constant ground of our own being. It is this notion of witness-
consciousness that I wish to make some sense of in the following.2

                                                            
1
 Although my main point of reference is the Advaitic understanding of the self, I will primarily focus on
aspects it shares with Sāṃkhya/Yoga and many other Indian schools, i.e. independent of its monistic
commitments. (For an attempt to make sense of the Advaitic idea that ultimately only one self exists,
cf. Fasching 2010.) 
2
 I must stress that I intend to pursue, as the subtitle says, ‘phenomenological reflections’ on the Advaitic
understanding, and not engage in a staunch exegesis of the details of the various Advaitins' theories. I wish
to discuss philosophically what I take to be a basic intuition about the nature of consciousness that seems to
provide something like a foundation of the Advaitic speculations. 
 2. Self vs No-Self: The Buddhist Challenge

The central question of Advaita Vedānta is that of the nature of one's own self
as the subject of experience. I evidently have manifold constantly changing
experiences at each moment, and it is no big problem to observe them
introspectively; but who am I who has all these successive experiences? It is
the nature of this experiencer of the experiences that the whole thinking of
Advaita revolves around—not in the sense of some reputed ‘experience-
producer’ (so that today one could be tempted e.g. to assume the brain is the
‘true self’), but in the sense of a subject-‘I’ as belonging to the nature of
experiencing as such, however it may causally come about.
Buddhism famously denies the existence of such an experiencing ‘I’.
In Saṃyutta Nikāya XII.12, for example, the Buddha answers the question
of who it is who feels by saying: ‘Not a fit question…I am not saying
[someone] feels. And I not saying so, if you were to ask thus: “Conditioned
now by what, lord, is feeling?” this were a fit question’ (Rhys
Davids/Woodward 1972–79, vol. II: 10; bracketed addition by the translators).
So, in the Buddhist perspective, the mental life is to be characterized as a flux
of permanently changing substrate-less mental events, each caused by some
other, previous event, rather than in terms of a persisting experiencing self
(an ātman). Experiences take place, but there is no one who experiences them.
It goes without saying that in the various schools of Buddhism
the anātman doctrine has seen numerous interpretations (not all implying an
outright denial of the existence of a self;3 indeed, in Mahāyāna and Tibetan
Buddhism one can find views that are quite compatible with the Advaitic
concept of witness-consciousness4). However, for the sake of contrast I here
construe the no-self thesis primarily in the sense of a strictly reductionist
theory, as espoused by the Abhidharma schools. Even in this reading, the
denial of the existence of an experiencing subject is not meant to deny, at least
on a conventional level, the existence of something like a unitary ‘person’
(pudgala), just as Buddhists would not deny that there are chairs or states. Yet
                                                            
3
 For example, MacKenzie (this volume) argues that the Madhyamaka school holds—in contrast to the
reductionism of the Abhidharma—that the self is not reducible to more basic phenomena, but ‘is an
emergent phenomenon that, while real, is not a substantial separate thing’ (ibid. : p. 258). (Whether or not
this makes a crucial ontological difference naturally depends on the precise definition of ‘emergence’.) 
4
 Miri Albahari even interprets the Pali Canon as implicitly, but centrally, assuming the existence of a
witness-consciousness—‘a reading’, as she admits, ‘that aligns Buddhism more closely to Advaita Vedānta
than is usually acknowledged’ (Albahari 2006: 2; cf. also Albahari this volume). 
a chair is wholly constituted by its parts and the way they are assembled, and
is nothing over and above this, and similarly, the existence of a person does
not involve the existence of a self over and above the manifold ephemeral
phenomena that form, if sufficiently integrated, what we call ‘one person’. A
person is, in the Buddhist view, nothing but a certain ‘psychophysical
complex’, that is, an ‘appropriately organized collection of skandhas’5
(MacKenzie 2008: 252). A person in this sense ‘has’ her experiences only in
the sense that a whole ‘has’ parts, and not in the sense of some self-identical
‘I’-core as the ‘bearer’ of its experiences, that is, as an experiencer.6
The account of persons in classical Indian Buddhist Abhidharma texts is,
in its rejection of a substantial self, quite in accord with the (at least by
implication) dominant modern Western view on this topic (cf. Siderits 2003):
it corresponds to what Derek Parfit calls the ‘reductionist view of personal
identity’, that is, the thesis that a person's enduring existence consists in (and
is therefore reducible to) more fundamental facts, namely certain relations of
connectedness and continuity between physical and mental events
(Parfit 1987: 210–214)—and that in no way is the trans-temporal identity of a
person due to the continued existence of something like a ‘self’ as a
‘separately existing entity’ (ibid.: 210). The many experiences of one person
are not unified by each being connected to one enduring subject, but by being
connected with one another, and the very ‘oneness’ of the subject is, the other
way around,constituted by this (longitudinal) unification of the experiences.
This sounds plausible enough: What should there be in addition to the
physical and mental events and their interrelations? What else should a person
be but a ‘psychophysical complex’ of some sort? Nevertheless the ‘orthodox’
schools of India vehemently challenge the Buddhist anātman (‘no-self’)
thesis, and insist on precisely what the Buddhists reject: that there is more to
the existence of a person than this complex of skandhas, that there exists a
‘self’ in addition to the body and the experiences, which is the ‘who’ of
experiencing.
Is this more than just a dogmatic assumption? Can anything be said in
favor of this view? I think, on closer consideration, one has indeed to admit
                                                            
5
 The term skandhas refers to the five types of phenomena (dharmas) that constitute the person according
to Buddhism. 
6
 Expressions like ‘Devadatta's desire’, as the Buddhist argues in Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha'sNareśvaraparīkṣā,
do not imply that there is something beyond the desire as its agent, but are ‘just indicating that [the desire]
is connected with a particular stream of cognition, like [such expressions] as “the flow of the Vitastā
[river]”’ (Watson 2006: 190; bracketed additions by Watson). 
that it is hard to avoid feeling a certain unease about a purely ‘selfless’
account of one's own existence. Is it really true that there is no experiencing
‘I’? Are there really only experiences, but no one who experiences them?
Undeniably there seems to be a clear difference between an experience being
experienced by me and an experience not being experienced by me. Speaking
only of mental events, connected by some interrelations on the basis of which
a permanent ‘I’ is constructed, deals with experiences more or less as if they
were just objective occurrences, without taking their subjective mode of
being—their ‘first-person ontology’ (Searle 1992: 16)—sufficiently into
account. After all, experiences do not just lie about like stones or chairs,
equally accessible in principle to everyone: Experiences only exist in being
subjectively experienced, and that seems to mean: in being experienced by a
respective subject. And obviously, all of my experiences, no matter how
different they may be, have this one thing in common: that I experience them.
In this sense, experiences are not thinkable as being ‘ownerless’: they are
essentially experiences of an experiencing ‘I’. And the big question of Advaita
Vedānta is precisely what this ‘I’ that experiences its experiences (this ‘first
person’ of their ‘first-person ontology’) is.
Yet, the anātmavādin (denier of a self) might reply that even if one
concedes this subjective character of experience, this does not at all
necessitate positing an additionally existing subject. Rather, the subject
searched for (the ‘experiencer’) is simply the experience itself and not
something ‘behind’ it (cf. e.g. Strawson 2003). The experiences, as the taking
place of subjective appearance (as ‘events of subjectivity’, as Strawson puts it:
2003: 304), constitute the respective ‘inner dimension’ of a subject, and are
therefore not ‘had’ by an additionally existing self.
This is indeed the position advanced by Yogācāra Buddhism and the
school of Dignāga: This line of Buddhist thought expressly acknowledges the
subjectivity (the being-subjectively-experienced) of experience, but rejects
interpreting this fact as the experience's being experienced by a subject—
rather it is supposed to refer to its self-givenness (svasaṃvedana) belonging
to the very nature of experience:7 An experience, in revealing its object, is
simultaneously revealing itself, ‘self-illuminating’ (svaprakāśa) (just as a
lamp does not need to be illumined by a second lamp in order to be visible).

                                                            
7
 Cf. MacKenzie 2007: 47–49; MacKenzie 2008; Dreyfus 1997: 339–340, 400–402; and the contributions
of Dreyfus, Krueger and Thompson in this volume. 
‘Svasaṃvedana thus provides a continuous, immediate, and internal first-
person perspective on one's own stream of experience’ (MacKenzie 2008:
249), without presupposing a ‘first person’ in addition to experience itself.
The stream of experience is given to itself and not to a self.8
Of course I do not experience myself qua experiencer as just being the
present experience experiencing itself, but as someone who, as one and the
same, lives through permanently changing experiences, and hence is to be
distinguished from them. Yet for the Buddhist/reductionist account, this
apparent diachronic identity of the subject is wholly constituted by relations
between the experiences (most prominently memory-relations): The
experiential life of a person is, in this view, a series of causally connected
mental events without any underlying enduring self, and an important part of
the relevant causal connections that constitute the unity of one person is that
the contents of one experience leave memory-traces in the succeeding one.
Nothing more (especially not an enduring self) is necessary to account for my
remembering ‘my’ past experiences (and hence my experience of my
continued existence) (cf. Dreyfus this volume p. 133; Siderits this volume pp.
314–15; Watson2006: 153–165). It is true that I do not just remember that,
anonymously, experiences have occurred, but my past experiencing them9—
but this is simply due to the fact that the very meaning of the sameness of the
self, of ‘one person’, is co-constituted by these very memory-connections (cf.
Siderits2003: 25): I remember my experiences as mine not because I
remember my ‘I’ experiencing them, but because they are mine
precisely insofar as I can remember them (i.e. insofar as they stand in the right
form of causal connection to my present experience).
Advaita Vedānta, in contrast, insists that the subjectivity of experience
refers to an experiencing subject. Just like Yogācāra Buddhism, it rejects the
Nyāya thesis that an experience of an object only becomes itself manifest by
becoming the object of another, subsequent experience (comparable
to modern ‘higher-order representation theories’): rather, for an experience, to
be means to be conscious.10 But at the same time they reject the Yogācāra idea
                                                            
8
 This view is comparable to non-egological accounts in phenomenology, for example by Sartre, Gurwitsch
and the Husserl of the Logical Investigations. 
9
 As Śaṅkara stresses against the Buddhist view: Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.2.25, Deussen 1920: 353–354. 
10
 Cf. Chatterjee 1982: 342: ‘The Advaitists say, that when we have an awareness of an object, the object is
indeed manifested, but it is not the only thing revealed; here we have an automatic awareness of the
awareness too. The two awarenesses are simultaneous, but they are not of a similar structure, in fact they
are the two aspects of the same awareness.’ 
that it is each experience that is conscious of itself, ‘self-illuminating’
(svaprakāśa)—rather I, the subject, am immediately aware of my experiences
as they come and go (cf. Timalsina 2009: 20–21).11 For example, if I am in a
melancholy mood, this mood is not conscious of itself—for Vedānta this does
not make much sense—rather the mood exists in virtue of my experiencing
it (cf. Chatterjee 1982: 343).
And indeed, one might question whether it is really sufficient to account
for the subjectivity of experience—its being-experienced-by-me
(respectively)—in terms of its phenomenal self-givenness (svasaṃvedana), as
‘an awareness of what one's experience is like both in the sense of how the
experience represents its object and how it feels to undergo the experience’
(MacKenzie 2008: 249). The question is for whom there is something it is like
to be in a particular mental state. And it is far from clear that it really makes
much sense to say that it is for the mental state itself to be (in) this state.
This ‘who’ of experiencing is an additional fact with regard to the
experience and its phenomenal character: No facts whatsoever about an
experience or its ‘what-it-feels-like-ness’ can ever imply its being
experienced by me (except, precisely, that it is I who experiences it). It
appears to be perfectly conceivable that this very experience with all its
relations to other experiences of the same stream of consciousness, to this
body and to the rest of the world, could have existed without the ‘I’ which
experiences it being me. This seems to be a contingent (and even, as Thomas
Nagel states, ‘outlandish’ (Nagel 1986: 55)) fact (as I argue in Fasching 2009;
cf. also Madell 1981; Klawonn 1987).
This quite enigmatic additionality of the being-experienced-by-me with
regard to all other properties of an experience, changes, I believe, the
perspective on the question of the diachronic unity of the subject. It seems
that what happened once can happen again: that an experience happens as the
taking place of me. This refers to something radically different from the
question of whether there are experiences that are connected to,
or continuous with, my present one. When I ask whether I will still exist
tomorrow, I do not ask whether there will be experiences that, for example,
have a first-personal access to my present one. I do not refer to any aspects of
                                                            
11
 Śaṅkara argues against the Yogācārins that even if the experience, like a lamp which need not be
illuminated by a second lamp in order to be visible, is revealed by itself, it still has to be revealed to a
subject (otherwise it would be ‘like lamps, and be they thousands, burning in the midst of a mass of rocks’
(Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.2.28, Deussen 1920: 361–362), i.e. without anyone seeing them). Cf. Ingalls 1954:
301. 
the contents of some experiences in the future at all, but simply and
irreducibly to the question of whether these experiences will be
experienced by me.12 And this seems to be logically compatible with a
complete loss of memory or any other kind of psychological change (cf.
Williams 1973).

3. Self as Consciousness

What, then, is this ‘me’? Interestingly, for Advaita Vedānta13 the true ‘I’ (or
rather ‘self’: cf. Ram-Prasad this volume) is in no way some trans-experiential
entity (as is the view of Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika), but is in a certain sense
nothing but experience itself. For Advaita, ‘the self is the object-
experiencing…, i.e., ‘experiencing of something’, and is not only becoming
manifest in it as something which stands, as it were, behind or beyond it'
(Hacker 1978: 275). So in this view experience does not take place for a
subject, but simply as the subject.
Where, then, is the dissent from Buddhism and its rejection of an
experiencing self in addition to experience? The crucial difference is that
‘experience’ is meant here in the sense of consciousness (citor caitanya),
which in Advaita Vedānta is strictly distinguished from the mind (in the sense
of the changing mental states). When, for example, Advaitins speak
of jñāna (‘cognition’ or, in the terminology of this paper, ‘experience’) as
being the essence of the self, they expressly distinguish it from what they call
the vṛtti-jñānas, that is, the manifold transient mental states (Chatterjee 1982:
342; cf. also Hiriyanna 1956: 344 and Timalsina 2009: 17).14

                                                            
12
 Cf. Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.2.25 where Śaṅkara stresses that my continued existence refers to strict
numerical identity and not to some similarity (Thibaut 1962: 415; this sentence is missing in Deussen's
translation)—and observes that while, with regard to external things, it is admittedly possible to mistake
similarity with identity, this is impossible with regard to oneself as the subject (which today is called the
‘immunity to error through misidentification’). 
13
 Just as for Sāṃkhya and Yoga, and, by the way, for the Śaiva Siddhāntin Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha: cf. the
interesting study by Alex Watson (2006) . In his Nareśvaraparīkṣāprakāśa, Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha initially
lets the Buddhist win over Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika, which assume the existence of a self as a further entity
beyond cognition. But while Buddhism concludes that there actually is no self, only the cognitions,
Rāmakaṇṭha holds that cognition itself is the self (ibid.: 213–217). He thereby repeats earlier debates
between Buddhism and Sāṃkhya (whose view of the self he largely inherits) (ibid.: 93). 
14
 Quite similarly, Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha differentiates between two meanings of jñāna, namely on the one
hand the many transient cognitions, and on the other, the one abiding cognition which is our very self (and
which he also terms, when it comes to contrasting the two senses of jñāna, prakāśa = ‘illumination’
or saṃvit = ‘consciousness’): the latter being a permanent witnessing or experiencing of the passing
cognitions (Watson 2006: 354–373). 
 So, in Advaita Vedānta, consciousness is not equated with the single
ephemeral experiences or with some property of them. Rather, it is understood
as something that abides as that wherein the coming and going experiences
have their manifestation (being-experienced). Consciousness is, so to speak,
thewitnessing (experiencing) of the experiences, and while the experiences
change, experiencing itself abides. After all, the succession of the experiences
consists precisely in one experience after another becoming experientially
present, which presence as such therefore does not change.
Just like Yogācāra Buddhism, Advaita Vedānta espouses the idea of the
‘self-luminosity’ (svaprakāśatva) of experience—yet not as a feature of the
individual mental states—these are things that become manifest in experience
(qua consciousness)—but rather of consciousness itself (cf. Chatterjee 1982:
342–344, 349).15 Consciousness, like light, is the medium of visibility of all
things and does not have to be illuminated by another light (i.e. become
the object of consciousness) in order to be revealed—it is the shining itself as
the principle of revealedness.16 Light is not visible in the way illuminated
objects are, but at the same time, it is not concealed:17 It is present, and it is
precisely its presence that is the medium of the presence of everything—first
and foremost of the experiences whose very existence consists in their being-
present.18
Hence for the Advaitins—although they hold that mental states are
manifest essentially, and not by virtue of being the object of some further,
higher-order mental states—it is not adequate to say that they are
                                                            
15
 In Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.2.28, Śaṅkara lets the Buddhist ask whether, with his stressing of the self-
revealedness of the cognizer, he is not actually adopting, only in other words, the Buddhist's own view of
the self-givenness of cognition, and answers: ‘No! Because cognition is to be distinguished [from the
cognizing subject] insofar as it is originating, passing away, manifold, etc.’ (Deussen 1920: 362, addition in
brackets by Deussen). 
16
 Cf. e.g. Śaṅkara's Upadeśasāhasrī I.15.40–41: ‘[It] has the light of knowledge as Its nature; [It] does not
depend upon anything else for [Its] knowledge. Therefore [It] is always known to me. The sun does not
need any other light for its illumination’ (Mayeda 1992: 145–146, bracketed additions by Mayeda). 
17
 Cf. Upadeśasāhasrī I.15.48 and 50: ‘Ātman Itself…is by nature neither knowable nor not knowable’.
‘Just as there is neither day nor night in the sun, since there is no distinction in the nature of light, so is there
neither knowledge nor ignorance in Ātman, since there is no distinction in the nature of knowledge’
(Mayeda 1992: 146). ‘Though light is an illuminator, it does not illumine itself [since it has in itself no
difference as between illuminator and illuminated]…In like manner Ātman [which has homogeneous
knowledge] never sees Itself’ (ibid.: I.16.12 , Mayeda 1992: 150, bracketed additions by Mayeda). Cf.
Ram-Prasad this volume, section 5, and Ram-Prasad 2007: 78–79. 
18
For an insightful discussion of the understanding of consciousness as ‘luminosity’ in Indian philosophy,
cf. Ram-Prasad 2007: 51–99.

 
immediately self-aware. Rather, they exist in manifesting themselves in the
medium of the luminosity of consciousness, which is immediately self-
revealed. Experiences have their very being in their being-consciously-present
(in being manifest in ‘primary presence’, as Erich Klawonn (1987,1998) calls
it), and while these experiences are permanently fleeting, conscious presence
as such abides (Klawonn 1998: 59; cf. Zahavi 1999: 80; Zahavi this volume:
p. 59).
So, in this view, the manifold transient experiences have their
manifestation in one consciousness. Yet why should we assume this? Why
should we draw a distinction between the individual experiences and
consciousness, thereby obviously hypostasizing consciousness into a
‘something’ in addition to experience? Why should we assume an irreducible
sameness of consciousness, if, quite evidently, constantly new consciousness-
events are transpiring? Conscious experiences admittedly share the feature of
being conscious, but it seems to be an obvious fallacy to speak here of
something like a persisting consciousness-entity. So is there any justifiable
sense in which consciousness is to be distinguished from the individual
experiences and in which a multitude of experiences can be the taking place of
the same consciousness?
I think there is. Already in a purely synchronic perspective, consciousness
comprises manyexperiences, that is, I am actually seeing, hearing, thinking,
etc. manifold things at the same time. The question is how one should account
for this oneness of the experiencing ‘I’ across its manifold simultaneous
experiences (i.e., what binds these experiences together as ‘mine’). Naturally,
the reductionist cannot explain the synchronic unity of experiences by their
being experienced by one subject (by me). For, in her view, there is simply no
subject one could presuppose as explanans; rather, it's the other way around:
just like diachronic unity, the unity of being-experienced-by-one-subject at a
time is to be explained by the being-unified of the experiences by unity
relations that hold between them.
Yet what sort of relations could these be? One must not forget that it is not
just any relation,any unity between experiential contents that is at stake here,
but the unity of being-present-in-one-consciousness. Certain experiential
contents can be more strongly associated than others, and thereby bound
together to form experiential ‘fields’ (experiential unities) in contrast to a
background; they can be coordinated as constituting one coherent space, and
the like—but all such relations that might bind together experiences into ‘total
experiences’ actually presuppose their being-present-together (cf.
Dainton 2006: 240–244). Only what is co-present in this sense can be
associated.
And this presence is nothing other than the being-experienced of the
experiences in which, in the sense of their ‘first-person ontology’, the
experiences have their being. So they do not exist and additionally become
somehow unified. Rather, it is their very being (namely their being-
experienced) wherein they have their unity.
One could counter that it was inadequate to speak of many simultaneous
experiences in the first place. Rather, it is one total experience with an inner
complexity.19 But the crucial question is precisely wherein the unity of this
‘one total experience’ lies. Nothing on the content-side can do this job. So one
obviously has to distinguish between the one experience and the many
experiential contents that manifest themselves within it. And if one wishes to
call the latter ‘experiences’, it is important to understand that the one
experience is not a sum or a composition of these many experiences (qua
experiential contents), but rather it is ‘experience’ in the sense of
the experiencing of the experiences (cf. Zahavi 1999: 80): that wherein they
have their being-experienced, their primary presence—quite in the sense of
the Advaitic notion of jñāna (or sākṣi-jñāna, as it is occasionally called) in
contrast to the vṛtti-jñānas. So when we speak of many simultaneous
experiences, their difference lies in what is present, not in presence itself.
This, I would suggest, is how the talk of ‘witnessing’ in Advaita Vedānta
should be interpreted: We stated that the ‘witness’ (sākṣin) is not understood
as an observing entity standing opposed to what it observes, but as the very
taking place of ‘witnessing’ itself, and ‘witnessing’ is nothing other than the
taking place of the experiential presence of the experiences, in which the
experiences have their very being-experienced and thereby their existence. In
this sense, consciousness can be understood as the existence-dimension of the
experiences (cf. Klawonn 1987; Zahavi 2005: 131–132; Zahavi this volume:
p. 58; Fasching 2009: 142–144). A dimension comprises a multitude of
elements that stand in manifold relations to each other, yet it is not the sum of
these elements or a result of their interrelations, but what makes them,
together with all their relations, possible in the first place. In this sense, ‘the
self’ qua consciousness is to be distinguished from its experiences, but not as
                                                            
19
 Cf. the suggestion of Bayne and Chalmers in Bayne, Chalmers 2003: 56–57. 
a ‘separately existing entity’—just as space is not a separately existing entity
in addition to the spatial objects, yet also not identical to them or reducible to
their relations (since any spatial relations presuppose space).20
So the unity of being-experienced-together is irreducible to the many
experiences and their relations, being rather that wherein they have their
being, and this is nothing other than what Advaita Vedānta calls the ātman as
‘the immediately co-experienced unity of experiencing’ (as Paul Hacker
characterizes Advaita's ātman, using a formulation of Scheler's about the
‘person’: Hacker 1978: 274; cf. ibid.: 275).
When Advaita Vedānta equates the self with consciousness, this is not
supposed to mean that the subject is composed of the many contents of
consciousness. I qua consciousness am not an agglomeration of phenomenal
contents, properly organized, but rather their thereness, their presence (and
that is the one presence of the manifold contents).21
Now the question is: What is the nature of the temporal abiding of
experiential presence through the permanent succession of experiences? Does
a new presence with new contents not take place each moment? Is there a
                                                            
20
 Cf., e.g. Upadeśasāhasrī II.2.58 and I.14.50: ‘Ātman, like space, is by nature not composite’; ‘there is no
distinction at any time in the Seeing which is like ether’ (Mayeda 1992: 237 and 140–141). 
21
 In her very lucid paper on the concept of witness-consciousness, Miri Albahari (2009) rigorously
distinguishes it from the ‘for-me-ness’ or ‘mineness’ (i.e. ‘first-personal givenness’), which Dan Zahavi
posits as the core sense of self. While mineness is a property of experience, witness-consciousness is
‘the modus operandi of the subject that has them’ (Albahari 2009: 68), i.e. of a ‘separate me’ (ibid.: 73 )
(whereas for Zahavi ‘the self…does not exist in separation from the experiences, and is identified by the
very first-personal givenness of the experiences’: Zahavi 2005: 132). I agree that experiences and
consciousness have to be distinguishedin a certain sense (this being the very idea of ‘witness-
consciousness’), yet I disagree with breaking them apart as if they were separate existences, as Albahari
seems to do. Witness-consciousness is, according to Albahari, the ‘mode-neutral awareness’ that is
supposed to account for the experiences' accessibility to reflection, and for the unity of consciousness
across manifold experiences (Albahari2009: 71–72), thus obviously our pre‐reflective awareness of our
own experiences. Yet this is precisely what Zahavi calls ‘mineness’ qua first-personal givenness. To
‘witness’, according to my understanding of the term, does not literally mean that the subject ‘observes’ the
experiences (as Albahari formulates: ibid.: 68 ), as if the witness were a separately existing entity that
watches experience-objects existing outside of it. Rather, it should be understood as the experiencing of the
experiences in which they have their very being. It is simply not the case that the being-present (first-
personal givenness, for-me-ness) of the experiences and the witnessing as themodus operandi of the subject
are two different things. And according to the Advaitic (and my) understanding, the ‘me’ of the for-me-ness
(i.e. the self) is—quite in agreement with Zahavi—not something to be posited in addition to this presence
(for-me-ness), but something that consists in nothing other than the witnessing/experiencing itself.
Furthermore, Albahari holds that this for-me-ness is, as an aspect of experience, something introspectively
detectable, and also in this respect stands in contrast to witness-consciousness which, as ‘built into the very
act of being aware’, can never become an object of awareness (Albahari 2009: 68–69). I have my doubts
about the former claim. ‘Mineness’ is about as much a ‘real predicate’ as is ‘being’ according to Kant. It is
in no way a content towards which one could direct one's attention, no introspectively examinable quality
(no ‘feeling’: Albahari 2009: 70) my experiences have in addition to other qualities (such as the specific
character of my pain) (cf. also Zahavi this volume: p. 59)—it is rather precisely the first-personal thereness-
for-me of my experiences, together with all their qualities. 
succession of presences together with the succession of contents (after all, the
presence-of-this now and the presence-of-that then are
obviously different presence-events)? Or is it, rather, not one and the same
consciousness, in which the experiences have their coming and going? In
other words: Can two presence-events at different times be the taking place of
the same presence, that is, is there an irreducible sense in which two such
presence-events can be the taking place of (one and the same) me? Vedānta
insists that what changes when one experience follows the other (presence-of-
this being succeeded by presence-of-that), are actually the contents of
consciousness, not consciousness itself (cf. Sinha 1954: 329). And indeed, as
soon as one distinguishes consciousness from the experiences, the assumption
that the diachronic identity of consciousness has to consist in unity relations
between the experiences appears less compelling. And if one takes a closer
look at the nature of the presence of the momentary experience, it becomes
outright implausible: The ‘primary presence’ (the current being-experienced)
of an experience always and essentially is the presence of the
temporal streaming of experience transpiring right now. And that means:
presence is irreducibly presence of the current taking place of temporal
transition. (Otherwise no time-experience, no experience of change and
persistence, would ever arise.)
So the indubitable evidence of my experiences in their very being-
experienced is always their evidence as passing the thereby ‘abiding
dimension of first-personal experiencing’ (Zahavi 2005: 131). And, therefore,
the absolute evidence of my present existence is the evidence of my present
living through these streaming experiences. The being-experienced of the
streaming experiences as streaming implies the permanence of the actuality of
experiencing itself, which is the being of my ‘I’.22 Therefore
I, qua consciousness, am not the passing experiences, but rather their
manifestation as passing, which does not pass with them: the abiding
experiencing of the changing experiences (Fasching 2009: 144–145).23
                                                            
22
 Cf. Śaṅkara in Upadeśasāhasrī II.2.75 (in answering the question of how the perceiver, perceiving now
this, then that, can be said to be changeless): ‘If indeed you were subject to transformation, you would not
perceive the entire movement of the mind…Therefore, you are transcendentally changeless’ (Mayeda 1992:
240). ‘There must be some constant continuous principle to see their [the cognitions’] origin and
destruction…And this continuous consciousness is sākṣin' (Chatterjee 1982: 349). 
23
 Along comparable lines, Rāmakaṇṭha argues against the Buddhists that there is no need to assume that
the change of the objects of consciousness implies a change of consciousness itself: For even the Buddhists
cannot deny that many objects are conscious in one single consciousness at one point in time (and it is of no
help for the Buddhist to hold that this is due to a unifying cognition: it is still necessary to appeal to the
 So the question of whether the subject is something that can exist, in an
irreducible sense, as one and the same at different times, must, I believe, be
answered in the affirmative: It only exists as now-transcending from the start;
in contrast to the fleeting experiences it abides as the presence of the
streaming experiences as streaming. Experiences only exist in being
experienced, that is, experientially present, and they are essentially present as
streaming, which implies the abidance of this presence itself. This abidance
cannot be constituted by relations between momentary ‘experience-stages’,
because there simply are no experience-stages that would not have their
primary presence as temporally passing. That is: There is no experiential
evidence prior to the evidence of the ‘standing’ of the experiencing ‘I’.
This abidance of the ‘I’ cannot properly be conceived of as the enduring
of an object in time that derives its persistence from unity relations between
its temporal stages. For presence is not so much something that takes
place in the respective present, but rather it is this very present itself—not in
the sense of the objective time-point that is now present and then sinks into
the past, but in the sense of the presentness of the respective present
moment:24 What marks a particular moment as being now is no objective
feature of this special point on the timeline (cf. Nagel 1986: 57), rather it is
the ‘now’ only in relation to the experiential presence of the subject (cf.
Husserl 2006: 58, 390, 406). Consequently, the abiding of the ‘I’ is not so
much the enduring of an inter-temporal object (with its coming and going
temporal ‘object-stages’), but should rather be conceived of in terms of the
‘standing’ of the present itself, in which the very passing of time (the
permanent becoming-present of ever-new time-points and object-stages)
consists:25 that is, of the phenomenon that it is always now. While the
temporal stages of an object one is conscious of continually sink into the past,
consciousness itself doesnot elapse: ‘…even though the object of knowledge
changes’, says Śaṅkara, ‘the knower, being in past, future, and present, does
not change; for his nature is eternal presence’ (i.e. the presentness of the

                                                                                                                                              
possibility of a single cognition having many objects). So, Rāmakaṇṭha argues, if the multiplicity of objects
at one time does not affect the singleness of consciousness, why should the multiplicity of
objects over time? It is the contents of consciousness that change, not consciousness itself (Watson 2006:
335–348). 
24
 Cf. Husserl 1966: 333: ‘…the now-consciousness is not itself now’. 
25
 Cf. UpadeśasāhasrĪ I.5.3: ‘Just as to a man in the boat the trees [appear to] move in a direction opposite
[to his movement], so does Ātman [appear to] transmigrate…’ (Mayeda 1992: 114; bracketed additions by
Mayeda). 
present) (Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.3.7, Deussen 1920: 389). So the evidence of
the abiding of the subject is not the experience of some object-persistence, but
the condition of the possibility of any experience of persistence.26

4. The Presence of the World and the Subject in the

World

What Advaita Vedānta soteriologically aims at as the realization of the ‘self’

is nothing other than becoming aware of experiential presence (consciousness)
as such. So far, we have characterized this consciousness as the presence of
the experiences. Yet this should not be misunderstood as meaning the
presence of merely mental contents, of some subjective interiority in contrast
to the outer world. Rather, consciousness exists as the presence of anything
we could ever refer to, be it ‘inner’ or ‘outer’. The presence of the
experiences is the presence of the world.27 The presence of sensuous contents,
for example, is ipso facto the sensuous presence of the respective perceived
object; my thinking is nothing but the successive presenting-itself of some
meaning-constellation (some ‘thought’ in the noematic sense); the moods I
live through are aspects of the way the world is there for me, etc. So
experiences are manifestation-events—they exist as appearing-of-something,
and appearance as such has its existence in its being-present (being-
experienced)—namely its existence as appearance-of. The presence of
experience means that appearance-of-something takes place, and so the
presence of experience is ipso facto the presence of this something.
                                                            
26
 In my interpretation of the notion of witness-consciousness, I owe much to Dan Zahavi's views on
consciousness and the self. However, I am not sure whether we fully agree regarding the nature of the
diachronic identity of the self. Zahavi states ‘that it is the shared mode of givenness that makes two
experiences belong to the same subject, i.e.…it is their exposure in the same field of primary presence
which makes different experiences of one and the same self’ (Zahavi 1999: 144). I find this formulation
ambiguous. It could mean that a past experience is mine insofar as it is in my present experiencinggiven in a
first-person mode, ‘as mine’, or it could mean that the experience, when originally experienced, had its
manifestation in the same field or dimension of first-personal givenness. Hence, the question is: Is a past
experience mine insofar as, and because, it is first-personally accessible to me (in the present), or is it first-
personally accessible to me because it was experienced by me? The first reading ultimately amounts to a
reductionist view in Parfit's sense, and Zahavi appears to tend towards this approach (cf., for example, the
final section of his contribution to this volume). On the other hand, he speaks of an ‘abiding dimension of
experiencing’ (Zahavi 1999: 80), which would allow a view of the ‘sameness’ of the ‘same field of
givenness’ in the second sense (the view I favor). Formulations such as, ‘Not only is the first experience
retained by the last experience, but the different experiences are all characterized by the same fundamental
first-personal givenness’ (this volume: p. 58) may also be interpreted along these lines. 
27
 Cf. Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.2.28: ‘We are obliged to assume objects apart from cognition,
namely on the ground of cognition itself. For no one cognizes a post or a wall as mere cognition, but as
objects of cognition everyone cognizes the post or the wall’ (Deussen 1920: 359). 
 Therefore my being qua presence means that all sorts of things are present
to me. I can investigate these things given to me in manifold ways, and I can
also reflect on their modes of givenness. Yet what can be said about the
presence itself as such of what is present to me? This presence
(consciousness) is notoriously elusive. It has no observable properties of its
own, is no particular and distinguishable content we encounter, and can never
stand before us as an object. Therefore the self in the Advaitic sense is not one
of the ‘seen’ things but the ‘seeing’ itself: ‘I am neither this object, nor that, I
am That which makes all objects manifest’ (Śaṅkara, Vivekacūḍāmaṇi verse
493, Prabhavananda/Isherwood1978: 115). Presence is not a phenomenon of
its own that I could find in addition to other phenomena, but simply the taking
place of thereness of any phenomena. This is the sense of the so-called
‘transparency’ of consciousness, that is, the fact that when one tries to attend
to the consciousness of an object, one can hardly help ending up attending to
what it is conscious of.28
So the presence itself of what is present can never be an
observable object, yet at the same time it is the most familiar thing in the
world: It is that wherein everything we experience has its being-experienced,
the medium of all phenomena (the taking place of their phenomenality). And
the soteriological aim of Advaita Vedānta—the realization of ātman—is
nothing but simply becoming explicitly aware of this taking place of presence
as such.
Of course, in a certain sense we are constantly conscious of our being
conscious. After all, we are not living in a permanent state of complete self-
forgetfulness, fully absorbed in the objects: we are not only conscious of the
objects we see but also—at least implicitly—of our seeing them. But
evidently, this is not the form of self-awareness Advaita Vedānta strives for—
rather, it is, in their view, precisely a form of self-forgetfulness, that is, of
obscuration of the fundamental dimension of our own being qua subjectivity:
It is ahaṃkāra (‘ego-sense’), the awareness of a distinct ‘I’ (aham) as an

                                                            
28
Consciousness is no object we could find anywhere and is in this sense ‘invisible’. But this does not
mean that it is concealed. The transparency of consciousness does not mean that the cognitive processes
through which we represent objects are not themselves again represented and thereby normally unknown to
us (as Metzinger understands it: Metzinger 2003: 163–177), but rather that there simply is nothing to
represent, because consciousness is nothing but the thereness of whatever it happens to be
consciousness of and nothing beyond that: It is not an object we fail to be conscious of, but no object at all.

 
inner-worldly subject with particular empirical (psychophysical) properties
(a jīva, ‘person’).
To say that I am not only conscious, for example, of this desk I see, but
also of my seeing it actually means that I am aware of myself sitting here and
looking at the desk and of the fact that the desk appears in this particular way
precisely because it is given to me as someone viewing it from this particular
angle, with these particular sense-organs, and so on. So that which I am aware
of here, is my localization in the world, and of my own body to which I relate
the rest of the appearances. When I experience an unchanging object in
changing modes of givenness, I experience this change as being due to the
changing relations between the experiencing subject and the experienced
object: that is, together with the object, experienced in changing modes of
givenness, a ‘subject’ is experienced for whom the manifestations are
manifestations, a ‘subject’ which is itself something that is objectively located
within the objective world, standing in manifold—physical and psychical—
relations to other things.
And this is essential to object-givenness in general. Objectivity means
appearance-transcendence: We apprehend the subjective appearance as not
being the object itself, but as only being an aspect of this object, that is, this
object as seen from a certain viewpoint, in certain respects. Hence the from-
where of seeing is necessarily co-constituted with the seen object—co-
constituted as a ‘subject’ that is itself part of the objective world
(cf. Husserl 1952: 56, 109–110, 144; Albahari 2006: 8–9, 88). So in a way the
experience of objects is ipso facto also self-experience, in the sense of the self-
localization of the subject within the realm of the objects.
This not only holds for our being conscious of ourselves as a body, but
also with regard to the mental aspects of what we experience as our ‘I’: For
example, the field of givenness is never a mere homogeneous plane, but
features an attentional relief which indicates a mental ‘I’ to which certain
things are attentionally ‘nearer’ than others: I can direct my attention to this or
to that within the field of what is consciously there for me, so that my ‘I’ is
obviously to be distinguished from this field (cf. Husserl 1952: 105–106), an
‘I’ with particular personal interests and the like.
This ‘self-experience’ as a particular psychophysical being means that we
identify a certain special sphere of what is experientially given to us as
‘ourselves’: that is, we constantly distinguish within the realm of phenomenal
contents between what belongs to ‘ourselves’—one's body, one's thoughts,
and so on—and what is located ‘outside of ourselves’ (cf. Albahari 2006: 51,
56–60, 7329). This is what is called adhyāsa (‘superimposition’) in Advaita
(see below).
So object-givenness implies the givenness of the subject (an indicated and
experienced from-where of experiencing) as a necessary moment of the
structure of the field of the objectively given. Now the point is that
the experiencing itself—consciousness—is not a structural moment of what is
given, but isthe very taking place of givenness itself. The whole inner/outer
(self/not-self) distinction constitutes itself within the realm of experiential
contents—and consequently experiencing itself is not located within some
‘inner sphere’. My consciousness is not to be found on one side of this inner-
outer distinction in which what we experience is necessarily structured, but is,
again, the taking place of experience itself. The viewpoint is part of the
structure of the field of presence and therefore not presupposed, but
constituted by it.
Hence consciousness of myself as an ‘inside’ as opposed to an ‘outside’ is
not a way of being aware of consciousness as such, which is not a special
inner realm opposed to the outer objects, but the thereness of these
objects, the appearing of what appears (be it ‘inside’ or ‘outside’). This ‘pre-
interior’ consciousness is what Advaita Vedānta means by ‘self’: ‘[T]he self
which is of the nature of consciousness … [is] the witness of both the seer and
the seen’ (Śaṅkara, Ātmajñopadeśavidhi III.7, quoted in Gupta 1998: 38),
therefore it is ‘the pure “subject” that underlies all subject/object distinctions’
(Deutsch 1969: 49), ‘the “field” of consciousness/being within which the
knower/knowing/known distinctions arise’ (Fort 1984: 278).

5. The Process of De-Superimposition

In order to become aware of the self in this sense it is necessary to stop

identifying oneself with what presents itself as ‘I’ and ‘mine’: the
‘annihilation of the ego-sense’ (Ramana in Osborne 1997: 19). Normally we
are not explicitly aware of consciousness as such, since we are totally lost in
the objects of consciousness and can also understand ourselves only as one of
                                                            
29
 Albahari 2006: 57: The identification of the subject with certain aspects of the body or mind involves
‘the subject—the witnessing as it presents from a psycho-physical perspective—identifying with those
very khandhās [= skandhas] (objects of awareness) that contribute…to the impression of a hemmed-in
perspective from which the world is witnessed’. 
the objects. This erroneous self-understanding as one of the objects is what is
called adhyāsa in Advaita Vedānta, the ‘superimposition’ of self and not-self:
Certain experienced contents are appropriated as belonging to one's own self,
as an ‘inner’ opposed to what is located ‘outside’ the self (cf. Fort 1984: 278)
as it articulates itself in our ‘saying, for example, “that am I”, “that is mine”’
(Śaṅkara, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, Introd., Deussen 1920: 3).
Accordingly, the way of becoming aware of one's true nature consists in a
‘process of desuperimposition’ (Indich 1980: 16, 10), that is, a process of de-
identification from anything one objectively encounters as one's purported self
(cf. Fasching 2008). One stops identifying oneself with the inner-objective
‘subject’, the psychophysical entity (jīva) one normally takes oneself to be.
Instead of identifying certain configurations of experienced contents as being
‘oneself’, one begins to experience oneself as the abiding experiencing
itself (the taking place of presence) of any contents. De-superimposition
means radically distinguishing oneself from all objects by no longer
delimiting oneself (as an ‘inside’) as opposed to the objects ‘out there’. One
stops considering anything as being ‘oneself’ or ‘one's own’: ‘He to whom
both “I”…and “my”…have become meaningless, becomes a knower
of Ātman’, as Śaṅkara puts it (Upadeśasāhasrī I.14.29, Mayeda 1992: 138).
In the ‘de-identified’ mode of experiencing that is strived for, one
completely lets go of ‘oneself’ and becomes nothing but ‘seeing’, without any
distinct ‘seer’ standing apart from the ‘seen’. This amounts to a profound
transformation of one's self-experience and of the way of being in the world.
To experience oneself as the ‘witnessing’ leads to a sense of detachment, a
loosening of one's involvement in the concerns, desires, and fears of the ego.30
One experiences oneself as an inner stillness in the midst of all motion, and as
non-acting even when engaged in action.31 Instead of simply identifying
oneself with a particular configuration of experiential contents, standing in
permanently changing relations of activity and passivity to other experienced
contents, one simultaneously experiences oneself as the abiding experiencing
itself, as the motionless and non-acting dimension of manifestation of all
movements and activities, of any ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ and all relations
between them. One no longer apprehends oneself as a subject-pole in
                                                            
30
 Cf. e.g. Śaṅkara's descriptions in Vivekacūḍāmaṇi verses 428–442, Prabhavananda/Isherwood1978:
104–106; Osborne 1997: 31. 
31
 ‘…he who, though acting, is actionless—he is the knower of Ātman’ (Upadeśasāhasrī I.10.13,
Mayeda 1992: 124); cf. also Osborne 1997: 32. 
opposition to an object-pole, being affected by it, reacting to it, dealing with
it, but as the event of presence of any subject and object. ‘I (=Ātman) am of
the nature of Seeing, non-object…, unconnected [with anything], changeless,
motionless…[Touch] does not produce for me any change of gain and loss…,
since I am devoid of touch, just as a blow with the fist and the like [does not
produce any change] in the sky’ (Upadeśasāhasrī III.3.115, Mayeda 1992:
252; bracketed additions by Mayeda).
With the dropping of the notions of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, in a way nothing
remains for oneself, and in this sense it could be seen as a dissolution of the
self. Yet for Advaita Vedānta this ‘nothing’ actually just means no-thing, that
is, non-objectivity. The modern Advaitic author Arvind Sharma answers the
question of whether ‘the sense “I am” [is] real or unreal’ with the words:
‘Both. It is unreal when we say: “I am this, I am that”. It is real when we mean
“I am not this, nor that”’ (Sharma 1993: 96–97).32 One becomes aware of
oneself precisely when one ceases to find oneself anywhere.

6. Conclusion

In opposition to Buddhism, Advaita Vedānta insists on the existence of an

abiding self, a self which consists in nothing but consciousness (‘seeing’ or
‘witnessing’) and as such is the non-object kat' exochen, since seeing is not
itself something visible. I have argued that this view does indeed capture
something essential about the nature of experience.
Buddhism and Advaita Vedānta agree that it is necessary to inhibit the
identification with the ‘I’ and the clinging to what is ‘mine’ to achieve
liberation. The theoretical interpretation of this process is where they disagree.
Now it is my opinion that the notion of witness-consciousness allows for a
more faithful description of what actually happens in this process than the idea
of no-self (at least in its reductionist interpretation).
Buddhism invites us to reflect on our own being and holds that what we
will find are all kinds of transient phenomena (the five skandhas), but nothing
like a stable ‘self’. With regard to each of theskandhas one should understand:
‘this is not mine; this am not I; this is not the Self of me’ (Saṃyutta

                                                            
32
 Cf. Upadeśasāhasrī I.6.6: ‘The learned should abandon the “this”-portion in what is called “I”,
understanding that it is not Ātman’ (Mayeda 1992: 116). (Formulations like this seem to contradict the
claim, such as Ram-Prasad (this volume) makes, that in Advaita Vedānta the term ‘I’ does not at all refer to
the ātman.) 
Nikāya XXII.59). This insight leads us to the liberation from the illusion of
self. Yet the question is: If there is nothing but these transient phenomena that
constitute our being (in other words: if this simplyis what we are)—who is it
then that is not identical to all this? Who is it who can say of her body, her
thoughts, etc. ‘this am not I’? This ‘who’ is, I wish to suggest, nothing but the
experiencing consciousness in which all the passing phenomena have their
manifestation and which Advaita Vedānta regards as our ‘self’.33

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 8
Situating the Elusive Self
of Advaita Vedānta1
CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

I. Introduction: Advaita and the Question of

What is Denied When Self is Denied
In this essay, I will explore some ambiguities concerning what it is to affirm
or deny the self, through the view of the Hindu school of Advaita Vedānta
on the nature of the ‘I’ and its relationship to the reflexivity of conscious-
ness. In particular, I will seek to situate this elusive self between my
understanding of Dan Zahavi’s notion of the minimal self (Zahavi 2005;
2009; and this volume) and one reading of the significance of Thomas
Metzinger’s brief but provocative comparisons of his denial of self with
Advaita and Buddhism (Metzinger 2003: 549–50; 566).
As Zahavi (like others in this volume) observes in Section 4 of his essay,
the boundaries between self and no-self theories depend on what the self is
taken to be. Exposition of Buddhist denials of self in this volume range from
Siderits’ uncompromising reductionism all the way to Albahari’s defence of
a unitary and perspectival witness consciousness, which Zahavi points out
appears to preserve many of the defining characteristics of theories of self. So
it is clear that in the classical Indian traditions, within Buddhism itself, what
it means to deny self is a highly disputed matter. So it is with the Hindu
school of Advaita. As both Fasching’s paper and mine show, the Advaitic
assertion of self is not a straightforward matter, for other senses of self are
denied by them that look intuitively necessary for a theory of self.

1 I would like to thank Miri Albahari, Wolfgang Fasching, Jonardon Ganeri and, especially, Mark
Siderits for responses to an earlier draft of this paper.
218 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

Let me begin to situate my reading of Advaita by first commenting on

Albahari’s position (this volume; and 2006). Drawing on the early Buddhist
texts of the Pali Canon, Albahari argues that when the Buddhists deny ‘self ’,
they deny the ontological independence of a bounded consciousness tied to
ownership. She proposes that we understand insight as leading to recogni-
tion of the constructedness of this sense of self, leaving only what, she
maintains, is nirvana-consciousness—a perspectival, unitary, impersonal
witness-consciousness. Such consciousness will be consistent with the intel-
lectual conclusion that the subject of consciousness always eludes us, being
its own object.
Some might argue that this sounds remarkably close to the witness-con-
sciousness of Advaita explored in phenomenological terms by Fasching in this
volume. Of course, that in itself is not a philosophical criticism of Albahari’s
position: it merely alerts the reader to the complexity of the debate about the
borders of self/no-self. Later on, agreeing with Zahavi even while distin-
guishing the Advaitic position from his, I will make the point that Albahari’s
distinction between subjectivity and selfhood is one that Advaita rejects.
Although Fasching and I do not always use the same terminology to frame
the Advaitic position, we agree on the elusiveness of the Advaitic self: the
Advaitins reject both the generally understood Buddhist denial (contra Alba-
hari) of the unity of consciousness, as well as the insistence on individuated or
bounded inwardness that other Hindu schools require of self (ātman). Fasching
provides a phenomenological critique of what he takes to be the Buddhist
view that consciousness is momentary, by focusing on arguments for a
continuous conscious presence which has changing experiences. I look
more closely at a point he touches on, namely, the analysis of the use of the
first-person in Advaita, and the role that analysis plays simultaneously in the
denial of some senses of self and in the affirmation of a more mimimal unitary
conscious presence. So, in a sense, my paper follows up on Fasching’s, looking
at the way in which unitary presence is, in some sense, ‘self ’ for Advaitins.

2. The ātman as Self: Hindu Debates

The concept in Advaita that is going to be discussed in this essay is what may
be called a formal self—the ātman. In the West, much later, Kant is the
starting point for the discussion about formal selfhood, that is, selfhood that
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 219

is not filled in by the specific content of experience (in short, personhood).

His distinction between ‘empirical apperception’ (or ‘inner sense’ or ‘inner
experience’) and ‘transcendental apperception’ which precedes all experi-
ence, sets in motion the tradition of analysis that distinguishes between the
specific features of any person’s sense of themselves as such-and-such a
person, and the impersonal consciousness of self that is the ground for the
possibility of the former (e.g. Kant: B132). In a very general sense, the
Hindu thinkers are somewhat akin to Kant. They too hold that what one
takes onself to be (the ‘sense of self ’ or literally, ‘“I”-ness’, ahamkāra),
˙
through experiences of psychological states and bodily conditions, is always
shifting; Kant talks of ‘empirical consciousness’ that ‘depends on circum-
stances or empirical conditions’ (Kant: B140). Their concern is with some-
thing akin (in its function, rather than any explanatory feature) to Kant’s
‘pure apperception’, namely, the ātman’s priority to empirical conscious-
ness. There are, however, major disagreements among the Hindu or brah-
manical schools themselves about what that ātman is, such that it is
metaphysically distinguishable from shifting personhood.
David Velleman has made a distinction that, terminologically, and to a
large extent conceptually, parallels mine. He comments that if two thinking
substances share thoughts they are one person, whereas if there is access to
(presumably to the content and perspective of ) one another’s first-personal
thoughts, they are one and the same self (Velleman 1996: 75, n. 40; emphasis
Velleman’s). This is part of his larger distinction between what he calls
identity and reflexivity, the first holding between persons at different times,
the latter between subjects sharing first-personal terms (Velleman 1996: 65).2
In any case, it is the perspectival presence, a consciousness of subjective unity,
that is the point of disagreement in Indian philosophy. The question for the
Indians is whether what is phenomenologically given—the experience, and
the sense of a subject that is the ground condition for experience—is best
explained by a genuine unity of consciousness, or whether that unity is itself a

2 However, I approach the distinction with different concerns. Velleman calls the selfhood that holds
between persons across times a metaphysical relation, and that which holds between first-person-sharing
subjects a psychological one. To me, it seems as if it is the other way around: What makes for a person,
through identification, are psychological ties, together with other factors such as narrative and social
relationality, and what makes for subjective selfhood is the metaphysics by which a unity of conscious-
ness holds across time. I am unsure whether this means we are talking of different things, whether this is
purely terminological, or whether there is some important difference in approach here.
220 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

construct of experience, and if it is agreed that there is unity of conscious-

ness, whether that points to a unified self. Buddhists, of course, generally
deny that there is a unified self which generates unity of consciousness;
through a wide range of positions, they maintain that that felt unity is
constructed. Broadly, Hindu realists, like the Nyāya and Mı̄māmsā
˙
schools, hold that there is a unified self to which phenomenology points,
which is the condition for the construction of the empirical person
(although there are different theories abut how the nature and existence
of that self is affirmed). The Advaita school holds that there is a unity of
consciousness, but not that there is a unified self that happens to possess the
quality of consciousness.
Nyāya and Mimāmsā (as also the schools of Jainism) clearly assert the
˙
existence of a plurality of ātmans, understood as non-physical simple entities
with the quality of consciousness, with each being (human or otherwise,
whether a person or not) animated by an ātman. In short, while the ātman
does individuate each person, its identity is purely formal, in that each ātman
is ontologically distinct but has no further contentful distinctions, which
latter are all tied to the specific features of the person. For Nyāya, the ātman,
while the owner of the consciousness that thinks of ātman in the first place, is
at the same time an object in the world, one of the categories (padārtha) that
constitute reality.3 In the rest of the essay, we will focus on Advaita, which
also asserts the existence of ātman, and therefore falls under those who
believe in ‘self ’ against the Buddhists, but turns out to have a very different
explanation for what that ātman is.
Advaita holds that consciousness can be understood in three ways. (One
could say metaphorically, that the latter two are ‘allotropes’ of the first—of
the same stuff ontologically, but with different structures and functions.)
There is brahman, which is simply the name for consciousness as the
universal and singular basis for all reality, and from which, in some sense,
all reality is no different. Then there is ātman, which is the general name for

3 In many ways, Nyāya’s robust metaphysical realism about the ātman is closer to Thomas Nagel’s
idea of an objective self, in which, while it is contingently true that the self has a perspective on the
world, it is itself only an element in that very world, so that the perspective it seeks is completely
objective (the famous ‘view from nowhere’) (Nagel 1986). Even more pertinently, its position in some
ways resembles Richard Swinburne’s ‘simple self ’ (1984), although we have to be careful about mapping
the details of Swinburne’s dualism onto the Hindu schools.
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 221

consciousness understood as the ground of every individuated being. Final-

ly, there is the jı̄va, which, through its egoity (ahamkāra) is the empirical
˙
consciousness in the locus of every individuated being. The gnoseological
project is the cultivation and disciplining of jı̄va-consciousness through
analyzing away the inauthentic features of self found in egoity, so that the
phenomenology of consciousness is purified to the point when only ātman
as formal consciousness is left to, and for, itself; at the point of formal
presence alone, the non-difference between the hitherto limited conscious-
ness and that of the universal consciousness is realized.
We are not concerned here with either the gnoseological discipline or the
cosmic ontology of Advaita. Rather, the focus will be on how consciousness
as we know it, that phenomenal undergoing whose presence is the starting-
point of investigation into selfhood, is understood in Advaita. In what
follows, we will concentrate on the interplay between (i) the concept of
ahamkāra—the construction of an ‘I’—in the individuated consciousness of
˙
the jı̄va and (ii) the concept of ātman that is peculiar to Advaita. I want to
locate this exploration within the context of the denial and affirmation of
self found in Zahavi and Metzinger.

3. Metzinger’s No One and Zahavi’s Core Self

The contemporary research around which I want to build this analysis is a
juxtaposition of Thomas Metzinger’s denial of self and Dan Zahavi’s asser-
tion of a core self available in phenomenological consciousness. Let me
begin with Zahavi, starting with his interpretation of the phenomenologists
(Zahavi 2009). Zahavi reads Husserl and Heidegger as working with a
distinction between (i) a self which is not a person as such and (ii) the
personal self. Husserl says that the phenomenology of every possible subject
of experience has only a peculiar mineness (Meinheit), different from the
proper individuality of the person whose origin is in social life (Husserl
1989). Again, although this is a notoriously difficult topic, there are elements
in Heidegger’s concept of selfhood (Dasein) that appear to be getting at a core
conception of the self in the phenomenological mineness of consciousness,
when he distinguishes this from the everyday Dasein, which is an objectual
form. For him, selfhood has these different modes, the first addressed by the
222 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

question of ‘who’, which speaks of existence itself, and the other by ‘what’,
which is that person who is present, or to hand, as the object of any
investigation (Heidegger 1962: 62–77).4 It would seem here that in both
cases, the phenomenological core of being is a self that does not contain the
constitutents of personal identity, the first-personal nature of awareness
being the minimal structure of phenomenal consciousness. In this, all the
brahmanical systems, barring Advaita, have a somewhat similar attitude
toward the ātman, which is picked out by the ‘I’ (aham).
˙
Drawing on phenomenology, Zahavi has eloquently made the distinc-
tion between a phenomenologically constitutive minimal self which is the
perspectival subject, and a more extended sense of self, constituting person-
hood, given by a richer and more robust psycho-social being (Zahavi.
2005). Zahavi argues for a minimal conception of self, based on the phe-
nomenology of mineness: he derives this conception from his interpretation
of the German phenomenologists’ notion of in-each-case-mineness (Jemei-
nigkeit), which he reads as ‘formal individuation’. Again, although this leads
to specific aspects of phenomenological interpretation, it has striking paral-
lels with my reading of the nature of ātman, especially in the non-Advaitic
brahmanical schools, as having only formal identity. For the Advaitins, this
applies to the jı̄va, the ātman being the impersonal reflexivity of persistent
consciousness, as we will see below.
The idea that consciousness is primarily about phenomenality–the what-
it-is-likeness that conscious beings undergo–and the idea that that phenom-
enality contains within it the sense that a self undergoes it, were barely
recognized in Anglophone philosophy twenty years ago. But now, even
those who take their philosophy to derive from close study of cognitive
science, like Thomas Metzinger, agree on these two points. But Metzinger
has an interesting claim regarding the phenomenality of self, or the sense
within consciousness that such consciousness is that of a self. His scepticism
about the self starts with an examination of whether a study of the stable
physical world can reveal anything that might count as a self. His claim,
which has quickly become well known in the field, is that, ‘nobody ever
was or had a self ’ (Metzinger 2003: 1).

4 There is also the further, very tricky issue of Heidegger’s distinction between authentic and
inauthentic modes of being the self, which has some resonance with the brahmanical search for a
similar-sounding difference.
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 223

It seems to me that there are two approaches to take to Metzinger. One

concerns his theory of the basis of consciousness (from which the illusion of
self is said to derive), and it is broadly physicalist. Another concerns his
account of how consciousness (howsoever constituted) generates a sense of
self that is somehow illusory. It is the latter in which I am interested. Of
course, this means that one can look at his entire book as a physicalist
reduction of self. But that these issues can also be read separately can be
seen in the fact that Metzinger himself explicitly compares his claims about
self with Plato, Śaṅkara, and the Buddhists—none of whom, he will know
very well, could possibly be physicalists about consciousness. Surely it is
with some deliberation that he makes these comparisons, and that seems
sufficient for my purpose of bracketing possible issues about the basis of
consciousness (i.e. whether it be physicalist or not), and looking at the way a
self is presented in phenomenality. (Despite his own effort at comparison,
nothing I say here implies that I read Metzinger as agreeing with the
ontological claims of Advaita, or most traditional Buddhist positions for
that matter.) My focus, then, is on Metzinger’s view that a model of self is
generated in and by consciousness, such that there appears to be an owner
for phenomenality.
Now, Metzinger cites both the Buddhists and, importantly for my
purposes, Śaṅkara (the founder of Advaita Vedānta), as holding a position
comparable to his own (Metzinger 2003: 550; 566), so far as the illusion of
self is concerned. With regard to the former, he compares his conception of
selflessness with the Buddhist conception of ‘enlightenment’; with the
latter, he finds a common concern to argue that what is identified as self is
in some metaphorical sense a ‘shadow’ of self-consciousness. I take it, then,
that he himself is not too concerned with the differences between his
scientific concerns and the gnoseological ones of the Indians.
Turning then to some details of Metzinger’s position, one line of his
argument against belief in a self is that the self-identification with body and
the rest by phenomenal awareness—that is to say, the identity that con-
sciousness takes by associating itself with its content—generates an illusion.
Insofar as both Śaṅkara and the Buddhists maintain that what consciousness
constructs or generates as an individual self, from out of its phenomenal
inputs, is an illusion at some level, then Metzinger is right in citing them
both. He argues that the phenomenology of consciousness is itself wrong
when it appears to yield a self to whom that consciousness belongs. His
224 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

complex and ground-breaking book is impossible to summarize but the

relevant argument (Metzinger 2003: 547–99) is that consciousness is a system
whose function of transparently representing the world includes building
into itself a perspectival grasp of that world, and that perspectival quality
consists in a model of a phenomenal self whose construction is transparent
(i.e. not apparent) to the conscious system. In other words, just so the
conscious organism can function for survival, it requires representing the
world from a (its) perspective; and the way to do that is to generate a sense
that there is someone, a subject from whose perspective the world is
experienced, and to whom that experience happens. In that way, all the
distinctions and lack of confusion between ‘you’ and ‘me’ that ordinary
consciousness possesses are delivered. But there is no real self which is the
subject of experience, if by subject is meant a metaphysical entity whose
capacity to be conscious explains the perspectival nature of consciousness’
presence to itself. There is only a model of a phenomenal self built into the
representational functions of consciousness. It is impossible to both preserve
that sense of self and become convinced that intuitively there is no such self.
Either ‘I’ continue to function with that illusion necessary for perspectival
functioning or—radically—the consciousness ‘here’ reconfigures its entire
global model of what it is to be phenomenal and enters a cognitively lucid
way of functioning in which there is no self-ascription of experience at all
(Metzinger 2003: 626–7).
It is this latter possibility that prompts Metzinger to suggest that there are
similarities in his view with Asian notions of enlightenment. In short,
Metzinger is not only reducing away the social dimensions of personhood,
he is also saying that the I-ness of phenomenal consciousness is just a model
and not ‘real’—by which he means not a metaphysical object.
Zahavi, in contrast, reads phenomenal consciousness as that of a self: he
affirms ‘the subject(ivity) of experience’ (Zahavi 2005: 146), in effect argu-
ing that subjectivity simply is the presence of a subject in, and of, awareness.
The self that Zahavi is interested in asserting as minimal but real is precisely
what is provided in phenomenal consciousness (or ‘experience’): a persistent
presence in its own occurrence (Zahavi 2005: 128). But this indicates that he
may not necessarily be involved in a metaphysical disagreement with
Metzinger so much as a conceptual one. If Metzinger starts by granting
that the phenomenality of the self is given—that consciousness contains
consciousness that it is/appears to be a self ’s consciousness—then Metzinger
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 225

has granted enough for his, Zahavi’s, purposes.5 Zahavi is not interested in
defending conventional Western theories of a substantial self that Metzinger
rejects.
Two main points relevant to my interpretation of Advaita emerge: First,
there is a self-model in phenomenal consciousness, which is not a self
(Metzinger 2003: 550); under this model, where presence is transparent to
consciousness, phenomenality is represented as a relationship between a
perspectival subject (the ‘self ’) and its objects. In that sense, Metzinger does
bear similarity to Advaitins and Buddhists, in charging that the self built out
of the interaction of consciousness and world (howsoever their ontological
status is conceived) is illusory, and not a legitimate type of selfhood.6
Secondly, however, in stating that, if phenomenal consciousness does not
depend on an independent self whose consciousness it is, then there is no
self at all, Metzinger is only denying particular conceptions of selfhood,
which require ‘an “individual” in the sense of philosophical metaphysics’
(Metzinger 2003: 563). That would include such theories as those of the
Hindu schools of Nyāya or Mı̄māmsā, for whom consciousness is a quality
˙
of the ātman, and therefore secondary to its existence. For Naiyāyikas or
Mı̄māmsakas, if phenomenal consciousness has perspective (i.e. is structured
˙
as being from some specific perspective, that of the self ) that is only because
there is actually a self which possesses that consciousness. For them, the
transparency of consciousness to its objects is explicable through there being
a subject-self which directly grasps those objects at all only because it
possesses the determinative quality of consciousness (Ram-Prasad 2001:
chs. 1 and 2).
In arguing that consciousness is not intrinsically that of an individual
self, even a minimally phenomenological one, Metzinger does offer a view
that has something in common with Advaita and with (most conventional
interpretations of ) Buddhism. Zahavi might simply decide that that is
sufficient to call that consciousness a minimal self, just because that is how

5 Zahavi in correspondence.
6 Zahavi, by contrast, wants a different account of this sort of self, an extended and richer self which is
equally real, but on an account different from the strict phenomenological one. Incidentally, there is
much in the classical Indian material on such a view, in which the socially embedded person, regardless
of his or her constructivity, is still an ethically relevant and real entity, whose metaphysical status does not
alter the significance of virtue and conduct. This is the so-called ‘human-ends’ (pursārtha)-oriented view
˙
concerned with dharma or the ordered, virtuous life.
226 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

experience phenomenologically represents it. There is then an ambiguity

over how the very idea of a ‘self ’ (in the ātmanic sense) should be under-
stood. This ambiguity over whether what is left as core consciousness is a
self or not is precisely what is evident in the Advaitic use of ātman.
For the Advaitins, authentic self (ātman)—the core, undeniable presence
that is the ground of phenomenological content—is not about individuality.
The sense of an individual locus of consciousness—consciousness as jı̄va—is
not the final stage of analysis. This is because, according to them, jı̄va
consciousness functions through the instruments (kārana) and objects (kārya)
˙
of embodiment (śarı̄ratva) (Śaṅkara 1917: 254–5). Perception and other cog-
nitive activities that are structured in the subject-object relation are, of course,
possible only in consciousness individuated through its psychophysical appa-
ratus of mental operations, senses, etc. But that sense of individuated selfhood
is consciousness functioning (kr.tam) through ‘adjuncts’ (upādhi-s), that is, the
intellectual faculty (buddhi) of conceptualization, the perceptual organs, etc.;
consciousness is not that of an individual self (Śaṅkara 1913: 487). The
Advaitin rejects the idea of an individual self which happens to possess the
capacity for consciousness. Rather, what the Advaitin calls ātman is not the
‘seeing of the seen’—because that would simply imply a subject in relation to
its object—but the ‘seer of the seeing’ itself (Śaṅkara 1914: 161–2)—in short,
reflexive subjectivity as such. Advaita therefore has a complex and ambiguous
view of the perspectival nature of consciousness: on the one hand admitting
that that is constitutive of subjectivity, and on the other denying that that
implies an individual subject. It is in its analysis of the ‘I’ of consciousness that
we perhaps find a radical way of cutting across the apparently rival accounts of
Metzinger and Zahavi.

4. Exploring the ‘I’ and its Peculiarities in Advaita

We now turn to looking at the details of the Advaitic analysis of ‘I’ and the
way in which this analysis shows how it may be possible to deny egology,
even while affirming a unified consciousness that can be termed ‘self ’.
Philosophical systems committed to a metaphysically robust self routinely
relate it to the reflexive pronoun; whatever the precise details of their theory,
they tend to see the ‘I’ as somehow naming a self. In the classical Indian
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 227

schools, there is a common gnoseological concern to determine features of

selfhood that mislead the seeker into continued entanglement with the world
of suffering and metaphysical misunderstanding. Carefully delineating the
many features of bodily, psychological, ethical, relational, and social existence
that make up a sense of selfhood, the philosophers argue that these are not, in
fact, truly constitutive of one’s being, and that it is only through profoundly
transformative realization of this truth that there is liberation from the con-
ditions of suffering. Of course, the Buddhist schools deny there is anything
ultimately constitutive of being at all, although they disagree amongst them-
selves as to how such a misleading constitution of selfhood occurs and how it
should be discarded. The brahmanical schools, including the other main
Vedānta schools, Viśistādvaita and Dvaita, generally tend to distinguish be-
˙˙
tween these misleading senses of selfhood—which they term egoity (aham-
˙
kāra, the made-up-‘I’)—and the authentic self—which is picked out in some
way by the reflexive pronoun ‘I’ (aham).
˙
In order to appreciate the strangeness of the Advaitic position, we can
compare it to more intuitive accounts given by other Hindu schools. In the
school of Mı̄māmsā (or rather, within it, a sub-school called the Bhātta), for
˙ ˙˙
example, Kumārila argues for two things at the same time: the self makes
infallibly veridical reflexive reference to itself through ‘I’-thoughts which
take it as their object, yet, the features to which these ‘I’- thoughts relate the
self, like bodily qualities and activities, are themselves not part of the self. On
the one hand, the very locution ‘my self ’ (mamātmeti) indictates that the
primary meaning (mukhyārtha) of the first-person cannot apply to anything
other than the self. On the other, locutions regarding my body indicate a
distinction between the self and the body (Kumārila: 125–134). Pārthasārathi
Miśra defends this combination of claims. He says that the cognizing subject
is the object of the ‘I’-thought (ahampratyaya). When one apprehends
˙
(parāmr.śati), one apprehends two things: the self as ‘I’ and something else
as ‘this’. At the same time, when the apprehension is of the form, ‘I am thin’
or ‘I go’, the being thin and the going are distinct from the self. This is
grammatically indicated by the use of the genitive case, for what is actually
implied is, ‘this, my body, is thin’, and what is mine (the being thin or
the going) is not me. The ‘detrimental effect of intimacy’ (samsargadosa)
˙ ˙
between self and its embodiment creates the illusion that, in the case of
qualities pertaining to the embodied self (the person), those qualities are
somehow constitutive of the ātmanic self (Pārthasārathi: 121). The Bhātta
˙˙
228 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

Mı̄māmsakas maintain that awareness requires embodiment: without body,

˙
there is no consciousness for the self.7
The Naiyāyikas have a somewhat similar view of the matter. The ‘I’ picks
out the self. The self (i.e. ātman) cannot have experience (bhoga) without
embodiment (Vātsyāyana: 1.1.22; 35). Vātsyāyana also states that the funda-
mental erroneous cognition (mithyājñānam) consists in taking what is not the
self as the self; this is the delusion (moha) of egoity. Egoity consists in taking
the body (śarı̄ra), the senses (the indriya-s), the mind (manas), feelings
(vedanā-s) and the intellectual faculty (buddhi) to be self (Vātsyāyana: 4.2.1,
p. 288). This is not to say that these thinkers reject any association of
selfhood with psychological states or the conception of their body as an
object in the world. They understand, to repeat the point made at the
beginning of the essay, that this extended sense of self is intimately
connected with the rich features of the life of a person, that only the direct
way of referring to the embodied person is possible in ordinary language. All
conduct and experience require understanding oneself to be a person who
takes a trajectory through the world. But the gnoseological interest in these
features of extended selfhood—emotions, attachments, revulsion, relation-
ships, physical features, bodily activities—lies in analysing their separateness
from the irreducible self, the ātman, which they believe is picked out by the
referential use of the ‘I’, independently of the ascriptions of personhood.
I have given these other views in order to demonstrate that many
brahmanical thinkers tend to do three things simultaneously: (i) They assert
that what the ‘I’ designates, without ascription of particular states or quali-
ties, is the ātman, that is, the authentic self. (ii) They deploy, in contrast, the
concept of egoity—‘I’-ness—as a fraudulent (sopadha) sense of selfhood
(Udayana: 377) which, for all its psychological and social vitality (or, indeed,
precisely because of that), needs to be analyzed insightfully in the gnoseo-
logical project of attaining liberation. (iii) At the same time, they allow any
and every conscious state—those that actually occur in life—invariably to
take the form of associating the ‘I’ with qualities (sick, sad, tall). So the
condition of life consists in the ascription of a sense of self that is always
extended beyond what the self truly is. (That the analytic distinction

7 J. L. Mackie makes a similar distinction (although, of course, for very different purposes), saying that
there are two different rules for the use of ‘I’: one linking it directly to the human being, and the other, to
the subject, whatever it may be (Mackie 1980: 56).
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 229

between the transcendental ‘I’ and all its ascribed qualities is in fact a meta-
physical one between true and inauthentic selves is a further argument within
that project. But finally, both Bhāttas and Naiyāyikas argue that the ‘I’, when
˙˙
stripped of all ascriptions, is the self free of all personal qualities.)
The Advaitins, on the other hand, say something much more radical: the
‘I’ itself is part of egoity, everything about it is made up. The ‘I’ simply does
not pick out ātman. They are sensitive to the actual function of the ego in
the life of human beings, but given their interpretation of ātman, the
individuation denoted by the ‘I’ is precisely what they must reject.
Śaṅkara notes that there can be no account of the epistemic life which
does not involve the use of the reflexive pronoun in all its psychological
complexity. Without the appropriation (abhimāna—a possessive pride) that
‘I’ and ‘mine’ deliver, there can be no epistemic subject (pramātr.) and the
operation of the epistemic instruments (the pramānas). Vācaspati, in his
˙
commentary on Śaṅkara, explains how this extended and gnoseologically
misleading sense of self functions through two types of paradigmatic asser-
tions: ‘I am this’ and ‘this is mine’. The first, primary claim of identity
between ātman and the bodily apparatus individuates the self, and distin-
guishes it from other loci of such identification. The secondary claim is an
appropriation of relationships, in which the individuated being’s identity
becomes extended socially; ‘this is my son’ is Vācaspati’s example. The self ’s
two-fold (dvividha) appropriation sustains the march of the world (lokayā-
tram), including the means for the attainment of liberation (Vācaspati:154).
˙
The Advaitins go so far as to say that all uses of the reflexive pronoun only
pick out the extended self, the person, and not the authentic, ‘innermost
ātman’ (pratyagātman). The Mı̄māmsaka might say that the misleading inti-
˙
macy that leads to erroneous identification is between the ‘I’ and the
qualities attributed through the ‘this’. But the Advaitin says this intimacy is
in fact between consciousness as such and the ‘I’ (which are co-present like
fire and wood are burner and burnt, in Sureśvara’s picturesque analogy).
The ‘I’ too is truly just a ‘this’ for the seer (Sureśvara: 3.59, 3.61). This
suggests that even the barest awareness of individuation—howsoever
stripped of specific thoughts or feelings or perceptions—does not desig-
nate the ātman; it only designates the individuated self represented in
consciousness (i.e. jı̄va-consciousness).
In common with the other schools, the Advaitins agree that the ‘I’ picks
out an object idiosyncratically: the user of the ‘I’ succeeds in referring to that
230 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

very user and it alone. They agree with their brahmanical interlocutors that the
states the ‘I’-usage represents the subject as being are not themselves part of
the authentic self. But they part company with the others when it comes to the
claim that the bare consciousness of self present in the ‘I’ is in fact the ātman.
Here we must be very careful in seeing just what is going on. The Advaitins do
not disagree with the others that the ‘I’-form picks out something uniquely
and idiosyncratically, and that, moreover, there is a plurality of such entities,
each with its own locus of awareness. But whereas the others call this the
ātman, and take it as an element in the ultimate order of metaphysical
existence, the Advaitins call it the form of consciousness-as-jı̄va. In other
words, they argue that ‘I’ only designates a constructed self, namely, a repre-
sentation of consciousness individuated by and through its psychophysical
locus. What the Advaitins call ātman, however, is not the self of individ-
uated consciousness. For them, ātman is simply the consciousness itself that
does the taking (we can say, using the Metzingerian term, ‘the modeling’)
of itself as an individual. Consciousness as such is not designated even by
the bare ‘I’.
If by the use of the word ‘self ’ we mean necessarily an individuated locus
of consciousness idiosyncratically designated by the ‘I’, then the ātman of the
Advaitins is not a self at all, for they reject mineness as a fundamental feature
of reality, arguing that appropriation is a mark of the inauthentic self. At the
same time, there is a more nebulous usage of ‘self ’, which adverts to the
quintessential nature, the very basis of a being’s reality, which is what makes
it what it is. Now, our standard view of the fundamental nature of a being is
construed in terms of distinguishing it from what it is not. In the other
brahmanical systems, the ‘I’ functions admirably to thus distinguish the
ātman which uses it idiosyncratically from all others who use it in their
own way. So we find it reasonable to think that the ātman should be
translated as ‘self ’ for them, howsoever different this usage is from the richer
notions of personhood found in the larger tradition. But if the whole point
of the Advaitic ātman is to deny ultimate distinction between individual loci
of consciousness and treat it simply as the generic name for reflexive
presence, then it does seem strange to use the word ‘self ’ for it.
What then does the ‘I’ pick out (because, after all, it does function to
designate something idiosyncratically)? The ‘I’ in fact refers to the mind, for
the Advaitins. The mind for them is an internal organ or mechanism
(antah.karana), in itself part of the physical functions of the body. The
˙
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 231

classical Indians, of course, had no knowledge of the microstructures of the

brain, but by taking the mind to be some sort of ‘subtle’ (sūks.ma) but
physical internal cognitive organ, they treat it very physicalistically, as
something that can be described entirely through its content. Consciousness
is truly only that aspect of phenomenology which is reflexive, that is, the
constant accompaniment of being present, which renders an event some-
thing that the subject undergoes. But what consciousness takes to be
happening to its (constructed) subject is in fact a process represented in
the content of the mental processes with which it is associated. The analytic
separation of awareness from, say, my feeling of sadness and its ascription, is
phenomenologically occluded: I feel sad and recognize it thus; the con-
sciousness here is not aware that the sadness is only associated with a sense of
mineness which is itself constructed. There are three elements for the
Advaitin here: the ‘I’; the sadness as a state of the subject, as detected by
the internal organ; and the awareness that this is so ascribed to the super-
imposed ‘I’. The Advaitins urge us to recognize that the occlusion is because
of egoity. Egoity is that function of the mind whereby the (non-aware)
mind’s contents are associated with the (ātmanic) awareness, in that aware-
ness is not aware that it has constructed a first-person ascription: in other
words, the constructed self is transparent to consciousness.
The ‘I’, then, lies in the domain of objective usage, albeit in the specially
restricted indexical sense that it can be used truthfully only by each user
him/herself, where this user-specificity is determined by the location of
consciousness within a body. In fact, in Sureśvara’s formulation (Sureśvara:
3.60), first-personal ascriptivity is a specific mental function: it is the opera-
tion of the internal organ (antahkarana) as delimited (avacchinna) by the ‘I’-
˙ ˙
state (ahamvr.tti). As he puts it, ‘putting on the cloak of the “I” (ahamkañcu-
˙ ˙
kam paridhāya), the self associates itself with things external to it, whether
˙
they be helpful or harmful’ (Sureśvara: 3.60). Mental functions occur in two
ways: first, they operate in the ‘revealer-revealed’ (avabhāsaka-avabhāsya)
relationship with the self, in which consciousness reveals (or takes itself to
relate to) the ‘I’-function of the mind; this is why consciousness has the
illusion that it is familiar with an object called ‘itself ’. The mind becomes
the idiosyncratically possessed object of consciousness, through the unique
use of the ‘I’ in ascribing its contents to that consciousness. Second, mental
functions operate in a helped-helper (upakārya-upakāraka) relationship with
objects, in that the objects help to structure ‘I’-thoughts (‘I want this pen’; ‘I
232 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

do not want that poison’). It thereby allows consciousness to take itself to

relate meaningfully with the world, even if erroneously.8
The Advaitins themselves obey the normal grammatical uses of the first-
person pronoun, although they do mark out their special usage of the ‘I’ as
mind-wrought object too. For the former, they use the conventional cases
(vibhaktyah.) for the first person, for example the genitive is ‘mine’ (mama).
But when signifying the use of the ‘I’ as a metaphysically important object—
that which is associated with, but is not the self (ātman) as such—they are
capable of treating it as a special sort of proper name, so that, with the
genitive case, they use the locution ‘I’s’ (ahamasya) like one would use
‘Rāma’s’ (rāmasya).9 Sureśvara also says that the self (ātman) is the secondary
meaning (laks.yārtha) of ‘I’ by virtue of its association with the mind. The ‘I’
is extremely helpful for self-realization (ātmadr.śtya), and the self should
˙
therefore be seen to be implied by the use of the ‘I’ (Sureśvara: 2.55).

5. The Elusive Advaitic Self

What this account shows is a position that interestingly combines features of
Metzinger and Zahavi. Regarding the former, for the Advaitin too there is
no one indeed. For Metzinger, there is consciousness here that generates a
sense of ‘I’, as that which picks out an individual self; phenomenal self-
consciousness represents mineness, a sense of ownership whose construction
is not spotted by the consciousness which constructs it, because its modeling
is transparent (Metzinger 2003: 562). For the Advaitin, consciousness of
individuality is an illusion: ātman is not one particular entity but the
consciousness which mistakenly generates individuality.10
Regarding Zahavi, the Advaitin shares the notion of core consciousness
with him. Zahavi’s argument is that phenomenological investigation simply
presents the ‘subjectivity of experience’, the denial of which (by Metzinger)

8 Ibid.; Balasubramanian’s editorial commentary here is extremely helpful.

9 I must thank Nirmalya Guha for his insightful understanding of this usage in Advaita.
10 Of course, this consciousness is also transcendental for the Advaitin, for in the manner of Kant, it is
the prerequisite, the ground, for the phenomena of individual consciousness. Incidentally, Metzinger is
dismissive of Kant, and resolutely avoids the terminology of transcendental metaphysics, but one could
ask whether his ‘system’, which models the phenomenal self, is not in some sense a transcendental
requirement. The possible response that reductive physicalisms do not require transcendental arguments
requires a discussion that will take us beyond the remit of this essay.
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 233

seems ‘unnecessarily restrictive’ (Zahavi 2005: 128). He is aware that his

minimal self is ‘overly inclusive’ and the comparison with Advaita’s insis-
tence on its notion of consciousness being also one of self certainly seems
very lax too. In general, his careful distinction between core and extended
self also fits my interpretation of Advaita comfortably. In his essay in this
volume, he reiterates his view that the ‘givenness’ of the unity of conscious-
ness is also a ‘mineness’. But, unlike Zahavi, the Advaitins will resist seeing
this reflexivity as a perfectly natural appropriative and ascriptive ‘mine’. For
them, any mineness is empty unless it is about some specific quality or
representation—but then, that is not the core consciousness that provides
the very possibility of phenonemology but is itself not found in phenome-
nological content. Earlier Advaitins did not recognize immediately that the
combination of denying the ‘I’ and affirming the presence of unified
consciousness requires more understanding of how consciousness relates
to perspectival phenomenology. Later Advaitins concentrated on this via
the theory of ‘auto-luminosity’ (svatah.-prakāśa vāda). We will now turn
briefly to this theory, in order to see how they seek to approach perspectival
presence without first-personal usage.

6. The Reflexivity of Consciousness

Analytic philosophers have sometimes thought that the phenomenal pres-
ence of consciousness to itself (what the phenomenologists had talked about
as the essential mark of the self ) is actually about the self-consciousness of
any particular conscious state. The Indian debate that can address the mix-
up of the phenomenology of mineness and the analytic self-consciousness of
consciousness is actually the one about whether, whatever the way in which
self-consciousness is secured, the consciousness that possess that feature is a
persistent entity or not. The question of whether a stream of self-conscious
states—that is, whether phenomenal continuity—implies a self, is now
being tackled in the philosophy literature (Dainton 2005: 1–25). An extend-
ed and elaborate debate on this, of course, is central to the Buddhist-Hindu
debates of classical India. The outline of a specific Advaitic critique of the
Buddhist position therefore also shows the potential of that hoary debate to
234 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

contribute to current inquiry into the relationship between individual

moments of self-consciousness and the possibility of a conscious self.
The classical Indians do not conflate these two debates. They have a
separate debate on the constitutive nature, the presence as it were, of con-
sciousness. This takes the form of auto- and hetero-luminosity (svatah and
˙
paratah. prakāśa) theories, on how consciousness ‘illuminates’, that is, in what
phenomenality consists. This debate is initiated with the terminologically
different, but conceptually similar, svasamvedana doctrine of the Buddhist
˙
Dignāga. In effect, it looks at the self-consciousness of consciousness, but
clarifies that it is not about the question of the self (even if intimately
connected to it).
In general, earlier Advaitins simply assert the self-evident nature of (the
phenomenality of ) consciousness to consist in its reflexive access to itself:
the self ’s intrinsic nature is of being ever-present (sarvadā vartamānasvabhā-
vatvāt) (Śaṅkara 1917: 2.3.7; 585). (Fasching too, in this volume, deals with
the notion of presence in Advaita.) In short, the self has nothing to mediate
its access to itself. By contrast, knowledge of things is mediated by transac-
tions involving epistemic instruments and their objects (pramānaprameyavya-
vahāra). To say that something is known is for there to be (i) the subject of
knowledge (pramātā), (ii) its object and (iii) the mediation of epistemic
instruments such as perception and its organs. But the self has no such
distinction between itself and its awareness of itself. So the self is not an
object of knowledge (Sureśvara: 2.98; ātmano aprameyatvam). By ‘object’, the
Advaitins mean precisely that—things in the world that are accessible to
epistemic instruments. The Naiyāyikas would hold that that exhausts all
the elements of any ontology. But the Advaitins cannot mean quite that:
indeed, quite the opposite, because in their ontology, there ultimately and
irreducibly exists only universal consciousness—precisely that which is not
an object! So they must be distinguishing between that entity alone which is
real—consciousness—and objects of knowledge, which have some sort of
sub-real, provisional, transactional existence.11 In that sense, they are com-
mitted to cognitive closure, a denial that epistemic states can ever take the
subjectivity of the epistemic agent—that is, consciousness as such—as their
content.

11 On the Advaitic position on the status of the world of objects through a variety of concepts, see
Ram-Prasad 2002.
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 235

As it became clear that others—especially the Naiyāyikas and the different

sub-schools of the Mı̄māmsakas—interpreted the nature of the self and its
˙
consciousness very differently, later Advaitins sought to define more pre-
cisely their understanding of the presence of consciousness to itself as its
‘autoluminosity’.12 The aim of these later works13 is to clarify that the
distinctive and constitutive feature of consciousness is its transparency to
itself: all content is presented as if to the perspective of a particular subject,
while in reality, consciousness is the ‘pure’ presence of itself to its own
occurrence, which does not in fact enter into the content of specific mental
states. Following the earlier Advaitic position, the most important feature of
the definition of the autoluminosity of consciousness is that it is unknow-
able (avedyatva). This is not the self-defeating claim that nothing can be
known about consciousness, since that very fact could be known about it.
Madhusūdana points out that what is known is the theoretical claim about
the nature of consciousness as unknowable in the strict sense in which
knowable things are objects of epistemic procedures like perception and
inference, but consciousness itself is that which is aware (i.e. that which is
only ever the subject) of the claims regarding its nature and never the actual
object.
The Advaitins therefore deny many different sorts of self, and what they
affirm is hardly self in any recognizable way, apart from the reflexivity of
consciousness being, in some very abstract sense, the essence of conscious-
ness, the ‘self ’ of consciousness. In effect, they assert a stable subjectivity, or
a unity of consciousness through all the specific states of individuated
phenomenality, but not an individual subject of consciousness. What we
see here is that, unlike Zahavi (in this volume, section 4, response 2), the
Advaitins split immanent reflexivity from ‘mineness’. At the same time, like
him, they do not think selfhood can be distinguished from subjectivity.
They therefore insist that they are committed to self and reject no-self
views.

12 A more detailed and systematic taxonomy of position, looking at Yogācāra-Madhyamaka (the

Yogācārins being the first to comment on the constitutive nature of consciousness), Bhātta and
Prābhākara Mı̄māmsā, Nyāya and Advaita is given in chapter 2 of Ram-Prasad 2007. ˙˙
˙
13 The locus classicus is Citsukha’s Tattvapradı̄pikā (Citsukha: 1–5) with Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄’s
clarifications on the same topic in the Advaitasiddhi (Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄: 767–9).
236 CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

7. Conclusion
Metzinger’s argument that the constructedness of the individual self is
transparent to consciousness appears to apply equally to both Advaita and
most schools of Buddhism. If we set aside the historical development of a
Buddhist commitment to the view that all elements of reality, consciousness
included (or consciousness alone if it constructs the rest of reality), are
momentary, then Metzinger might be made to fit some reinterpretations
of both Advaita and Buddhism. After all, in this volume, Albahari sets aside
the reality of momentariness within a Buddhist denial of self. However,
if more conventional interpretations of Buddhism preserve the doctrine
of momentariness, then a Metzingerian account that does not appear to
require any denial of a unified system of consciousness, nor ask explicitly for
consciousness to be a sequence of momentary states, appears more easily to
allow of a cross-cultural comparison with Advaita than with Buddhism.
This is because the heart of the Advaitic critique of Buddhism is a two-fold
argument: one in support of the unity of consciousness, and the other
against the doctrine of momentariness (Śaṅkara 1917: 2.2.18–25). (Fasching
has more to say about both these Advaitic arguments, albeit from another
text attributed to Śaṅkara.) But in the end, the interesting point about
Metzinger is that he seems to offer possibilities for cross-cultural articula-
tions (both Advaitic and Buddhist) of how our most robust and intuitive
sense of self might be an illusion, intrinsic though it may be to how
consciousness functions in relation to the world.
Zahavi certainly yields riches for the cross-cultural philosophy of self, his
concept of the minimal self being very amenable to being read through
Advaitic lenses. The slight differences in emphasis between my paper and
Fasching’s—especially my argument that the Advaitic position is somewhat
more radical than Zahavi when it comes to the first-person—drives home
the point that there is still much to be done with such genuine cross-cultural
philosophical engagement.
Advaitins, then, within the specific debate about the nature and existence
of the formal subject-self (ātman) of phenomenal consciousness, while
seeming to side against the Buddhists in affirming the existence of ātman,
mean something very different about it than the objective self with the
quality of consciousness espoused by Nyāya or Mı̄māmsā. Their insistence
˙
 S I T U A T I N G T H E E L U S I V E S E L F O F A D V A I T A V E D Ā N T A 237

that the irreducible essence of being is subjectivity, rather than an objective

self with the quality of being conscious, seems somewhat akin to some
versions of Buddhist denial of ātman. Advaitins also take that subjectivity to
be unified, not consisting of a process of momentary events, while yet
denying that the use of the ‘I’ accurately picks out such a unified conscious-
ness. The ātmanic self of Advaita is indeed an elusive one. That was its
gnoseological attraction to the tradition and that is its philosophical interest
today.

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 9
Enacting the Self: Buddhist and
Enactivist Approaches to the
Emergence of the Self
MATTHEW MACKENZIE 

I. Introduction

The conception of the self as a substance separate from the body and the
rest of the natural world (e.g. the Cartesian ego) is widely rejected today. Yet
many accounts of the self are developed based on assumptions, such as
substantialism and objectivism, that arguably remain basically Cartesian (cf.
Dennett 1991; Metzinger 2003). In contrast, both Buddhism and enactivism
present fruitful alternatives to broadly Cartesian approaches to cognition,
subjectivity, embodiment, and the nature of the self. Indeed, the enactive
approach to cognition and its allied method of neurophenomenology explicitly
and systematically draw from Buddhist thinkers, ideas, and practices in order
to move beyond Cartesianism. In this paper, I take up the problem of the self
through bringing together the insights, while correcting some of the
shortcomings, of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist and enactivist accounts of the self. I
begin with an examination of the Buddhist theory of non-self (anātman), and
the rigorously reductionist interpretation of this doctrine developed by the
Abhidharma school of Buddhism. After discussing some of the fundamental
problems for Buddhist reductionism, I turn to the enactive approach to
philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In particular, I argue that human
beings, as dynamic systems, are characterized by a high degree of self-
organizing autonomy. Therefore, human beings are not reducible to the more
basic mental and physical events that constitute them. In a similar vein,
Francisco Varela argues that the self emerges through the processes of self-
organization, and that the self is thus merely virtual (Varela 1999). I critically
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

examine Varela's enactivist account of the self as virtual, and his use of
Buddhist ideas in support of this view. I argue, in contrast, that while the self
is emergent and constructed, it is not merely virtual. Finally, I sketch a
Buddhist-enactivist account of the self. I argue for a non-reductionist1 view of
the self as an active, embodied, embedded, self-organizing process—what the
Buddhists call ‘I’-making (ahaṃkāra). This emergent process of self-making
is grounded in the fundamentally recursive processes that characterize lived
experience: autopoiesis at the biological level, temporalization and self-
reference at the level of conscious experience, and conceptual and
narrative construction at the level of intersubjectivity. In Buddhist terms, I
will develop an account of the self as dependently originated and empty, but
nevertheless real.

2. Non-Self

The doctrine of non-self (anātman) is perhaps the best known and most
controversial aspect of Buddhist thought. On the Buddhist view, phenomena
arise in dependence on a network of causes and conditions. This is the
fundamental Buddhist notion of dependent co-arising (pratītyasamutpāda).
The Buddhist analysis of any particular entity, event, or process will focus on
the dynamic patterns of interaction within and through which it arises, has its
effects, and passes away. It is against the backdrop of this basic analytical and
ontological commitment that we can understand the Buddhist account of the
self.
First and foremost, the doctrine of non-self is a rejection of the ātman, the
enduring substantial self. On this view, the ‘self’ (ātman) is not just another
term for the empirical person (pudgala), but is rather the substantial, essential
core of the person—the inner self whose existence grounds the identity of the
person. Within the Brahmanical religious and philosophical tradition,
the ātman is generally given a strongly metaphysical interpretation. It is the
unitary, essentially unchanging, eternal, spiritual substance that is said to be
one's true self. However, the ultimate target of the Buddhist theory of non-self
is not the rarified spiritual conception of self commonly defended by various
                                                            
1
 ‘Reductionism’ is often used very liberally in the literature on personal identity, such that an account of
personal identity is reductionist so long as it does not rely on either a Cartesian ego or a brute ‘further fact’.
My view does not easily fit into these categories, but rather is an emergentist self-constitution view of the
self. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

Brahmanical schools. Most fundamentally, the Buddhist target is a much more

widely held and more deeply entrenched conception of the self. Galen
Strawson's account of our basic sense of self fits well with Buddhist
characterizations of the ātman. He writes:

I propose that the mental self is ordinarily conceived or experienced as:

(1) a thing, in some robust sense

(2) a mental thing, in some sense
(3, 4) a single thing that is single both synchronically considered
and diachronicallyconsidered
(5) ontically distinct from all other things
(6) a subject of experience, a conscious feeler and thinker
(7) an agent
(8) a thing that has a certain character or personality (Strawson 1999: 3).

Compare Strawson's view to Miri Albahari's account of the ātman (Pāli: atta)
in early Buddhism:

A self is defined as a bounded, happiness-seeking/dukkha [suffering]-avoiding

(witnessing) subject that is a personal owner and controlling agent, and which is
unified and unconstructed, with unbroken and invariable presence from one
moment to the next, as well as with longer-term endurance and invariability.
(Albahari 2006: 73)

Here we find the self understood as an experiencing subject, owner, and

controller that is bounded (or, in Strawson's terms, ‘ontically distinct’) and
enduring. Albahari also usefully distinguishes between the subject and the
self. A subject is ‘witnessing [awareness] as it presents from a psycho-
physical (hence spatio-temporal) perspective’ (Albahari 2006: 8, emphasis in
original). Thus, while perspectival experience implies a subject, it does not
necessarily imply a self. For a self is a particular type of subject: bounded,
enduring, controlling, and so on. Central to the Buddhists, the self in the
above sense does not exist, and our deeply entrenched sense that we are such
an entity is at the root of our existential and spiritual bondage (saṃsāra).
Rejecting the existence of the substantial self, the Buddhists argue the
existence of a person (pudgala) consists in the existence of the
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

five skandhas (bundles or aggregates) organized in the right way. The

five skandhas are:

1. Rūpa: the body or corporeality

2. Vedanā: affect and sensation
3. Saṃjñā: perception and cognition
4. Saṃskāra: conditioning and volition
5. Vijñāna: consciousness

These five skandhas are not to be taken as independent things, but instead are
seen as interdependent aspects of a causally and functionally integrated
psycho-physical (nāma-rūpa) system or process (skandhasantāna: an
‘aggregate-stream’ or ‘bundle-continuum’).
The rūpa-skandha (material form) refers to the corporeal aspect of the
human being, including the organizational structure of the person as an
organism. The vedanā-skandha denotes affective dimensions of the person
and their experience (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral). The saṃjñā-
skandhadenotes the more fully cognitive faculty of perception, including the
ability to identify and re-identify objects of experience.2 The operation of this
capacity depends on sensory contact (sparśa) with the environment as well as
sensory-motor skills (such as exploratory behavior) and is often taken to
involve the use of concepts. Next, the saṃskāra-skandha (conditioning)
includes the various dispositions, capacities, and formations—such as
sensory-motor skills, memories, habits, emotional dispositions, volitions, and
cognitive schemas—that both enable and constrain the person and her
experiences. This category also includes our basic conative impulses—
attraction, repulsion, and indifference—which are in turn closely tied to our
feelings and the affective modalities (vedanā) of experience. On the Buddhist
view, typically one's whole being in the world is driven by this sedimented
conditioning—and not always for the better. Indeed, the basic conative
impulses often manifest in pathological ways, as the ‘three poisons’ of greed,
hatred, and ignorance. As Dan Lusthaus remarks, ‘such predilections are
always already inscribed in our flesh, in our very way of being in the world,
even while we ignore—or remain ignorant of—the causes and conditions that
                                                            
2
 The term saṃjñā (sam: ‘together’ + jña: ‘knowledge’) is cognate to ‘cognize’ and can have the sense of
‘synthesis’ as well as ‘association’. Lusthaus translates saṃjñā as ‘associational knowledge’
(Lusthaus2002: 47). 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

have given rise to them’ (Lusthaus 2002: 49). Finally, the vijñāna-
skandha denotes discerning or discriminating intentional consciousness.
Therefore, in the standard Buddhist analysis, the person is not an entity
that can exist independently of the five skandhas. Take away the complex,
impermanent, changing skandhas and we are not left with a constant,
substantial self: we are left with nothing. Moreover, the diachronic identity of
a person consists in the appropriate degree of continuity and connectedness of
the skandhas—that is, it is a matter of there being a causally and functionally
integrated series or stream of skandhas.
Having briefly sketched the theory of non-self, let us examine two lines of
argument against the existence of the self (ātman): the criterial argument and
the epistemic argument. First, it is argued that none of
the skandhas individually, nor the whole complex of skandhas could be the
self—that is the independent, substantial, enduring, inner controller and owner
of the skandhas. Upon examination, none of the five skandhas meets these
criteria of selfhood.3 The various mental factors (nāma-skandha) are simply
too transitory, too mutable to constitute the stable, enduring essence of the
person. Moreover, the mental factors are revealed in experience as a stream
(santāna) or flow, rather than as a substance or object. The body is perhaps
more stable, but the fundamental problem is the same: like any complex
phenomenon, the body is in perpetual flux. How should we specify the
persistence-conditions of the body? One might attempt to identify the body's
unique ontological boundary or some essential part of the body that explains
its persistence. But neither of these strategies looks particularly viable. The
physical boundaries of the body are vague, and even if one could find the
essential part of the body, it is doubtful that this essential part could meet the
other criteria of selfhood. Thus it appears that none of
the skandhas individually, neither mental factors nor the body, could be the
substantial enduring self.
What, then, of the skandhas taken together, the nāma-rūpa or psycho-
physical complex? Could this be the self? One problem with this response is
that the psycho-physical complex is the empirical person, whereas the self is
being posited as the essence of the person which grounds and explains the
persistence of the person. The empirical person, like the individual skandhas,

                                                            
3
 The classic version of the criterial argument occurs in Saṃyutta Nikāya 3.66–68. Cf. Holder (2006)for a
translation. 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

is in flux, and therefore its endurance is equally problematic. Therefore, to

simply identify the self with the person as a whole would be to conflate
the explanans with the explanandum. Secondly, the relationship between a
whole and its parts is problematic, and the Buddhists deny that a complex
could be the independent owner and controller of its parts. Therefore, the
substantial, essential self is not found among the skandhas, individually or
collectively.
The second, and later, line of argument builds on the first. According to
the Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (fourth century ce), we must apprehend
the self either through direct acquaintance or through inference.4 But we do
not apprehend the self through either means. Therefore, we have no epistemic
warrant for the existence of the ātman. The self is not a direct object of the
five external senses or introspection. And while human beings typically have
a sense of self, it does not follow from this that the sense of self provides
direct acquaintance with an enduring, substantial self. Moreover, while it is
certainly possible for ‘the self’ to be an object of thought, again it does not
follow that the self exists.
So if the self is not known through direct acquaintance, then perhaps it is
known through inference. Vasubandhu examines a valid inference to the
existence of the unobservable sense faculties, and then asserts that there is no
such valid inference to the existence of the unobservable self. In the case of
the sense faculties, there is some reasonable way to tell whether the sense
faculties are present or absent (e.g. in the case of the blind person versus the
sighted person). Can the same be said for the ātman? One might, for example,
posit the existence of distinct substantial selves in order to individuate persons
A and B. But because the substantial self is supposed to retain its identity
independently of the ever-changing stream of mental and physical events
associated with A and B, how are we to establish anything about these posited
selves? As it stands, the empirical evidence—for example, distinct bodies,
various uses of names, and ‘I’—is consistent with both the presence and the
absence of the posited self, as well as a single shared self or a new substantial
self each moment. Hence, the inference to the existence of the ātman looks
weak. Vasubandhu's assertion here is not decisive, but the underlying
argumentative strategy is to shift the burden of proof onto the proponent of the

                                                            
4
 This argument occurs in the ‘Refutation of the Theory of the Self’ 1.2. Cf. Duerlinger (2003) for a
translation. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

substantial self. Is there inferential warrant for positing an enduring

substantial self or can the phenomena (e.g. memory) be accounted for in terms
of the systematic relations between various mental and physical events and
processes? The Buddhists, of course, opt for the latter approach on grounds of
epistemic and ontological parsimony. We are, they argue, selfless
persons (pudgalanairātmyā).

3. Buddhist Reductionism

The account of human beings as selfless persons is held by all major Buddhist
schools, but there has been a great deal of disagreement as to the full
ontological implications of the rejection of a substantial self. For the
Abhidharma or Buddhist reductionist schools, the doctrine of anātman is at
the center of a radically reductionist, anti-substantialist empiricism. Everyday
entities such as pots and people are not ontologically basic (dravyasat), but
rather are reducible to aggregations of basic entities. On this view, the
seemingly objective, mind-independent unity of everyday composite objects is
illusory—these entities have only a secondary, conceptual existence
(prajñaptisat). The ontologically basic entities to which everyday things are
reducible are called dharmas. These are simple, fleeting events individuated
by their intrinsic defining characteristic (svalakṣaṇa). Moreover, the
Abhidharma's basic ontology is fairly austere—according to one school, there
are only seventy-five types of dharmas. As the Abhidharma philosopher
Vasubandhu explains the view:

That of which one does not have a cognition when it has been broken is real in a
concealing way (saṃvṛti-sat); an example is a pot. And that of which one does
not have a cognition when other [elemental qualities (dharmas)] have been
excluded from it by the mind is also conventionally real; an example is water.
That which is otherwise is ultimately real (paramārtha-sat). (Ganeri 2007: 170)

This view constitutes a type of anti-realism about everyday composite

entities, including persons. Such entities may be pragmatically or
conventionally real (saṃvṛtisat), but they are not ultimately real
(paramārthasat). The being of these entities is fully accounted for in terms of
more basic entities: they are fully analytically and ontologically
decomposable. Thus, they have a merely derived nature (parabhāva), rather
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

than their own irreducible intrinsic nature (svabhāva). Further, conventionally

real entities must be epiphenomenal because, if they were to have their own
causal powers, they would not be completely reducible. Hence, according to
the Ābhidharmikas, all causation is microcausation—that is, real causation
occurs only between simple, momentary dharmas. Further, the genuine causal
powers of these entities are determined by their intrinsic natures. Notice, then,
that this two-tiered ontology rests on a radical dichotomy between the entities
with a purely extrinsic nature (parabhāva) and those with a purely intrinsic
nature (svabhāva).
Given such a revisionist ontology, one can see the importance of the
Buddhist doctrine of two truths. On the Abhidharma view, conventional truths
(saṃvṛtisatya) are those truths that quantify over reducible or conventionally
real (saṃvṛtisat) entities, whereas ultimate truths (paramārthasatya) only
quantify over irreducible or ultimately real (paramārthasat) entities. When
using conventional discourse, one is not ontologically committed to anything
but the entities mentioned in the ultimate discourse, even if conventional
discourse is not analytically reducible to ultimate discourse. Further, the
discourse of ultimate truth is the Abhidharma's ‘philosophically favored
discourse’—that is, the discourse in terms of which all other discourses are
ultimately to be explained (Arnold 2005).
Persons, then, are organized, temporally extended systems of mental and
physical events characterized by dense causal and functional
interconnectedness, including complex physical and psychological feedback
loops. Psycho-physical systems are also seen as deeply intertwined with, and
dependent upon, the larger environment. Indeed, for the Buddhist reductionist,
there is no sharp dividing line between the collection of events labeled
‘person’ and the collection of events labeled ‘environment’. These terms do
not carve the world at its joints: they are pragmatic, interest-relative
categories. In order to understand the psychological dynamics that give rise to
and perpetuate suffering, one does not look for a substantial mental self or an
enduring substantial person. Instead, the Buddhist analyst attempts to
understand the complex interrelations between mental and physical events
over time. The rigorous Abhidharma analysis, though, goes beyond the early
Buddhist shift in perspective from personal to impersonal analysis and
defends a strict mereological reductionism—this position, I argue in the next
section, is in significant tension with the more general Buddhist analysis of
sentient beings.
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

4. Four Problems for Buddhist Reductionism

While Buddhist reductionism offers a powerful critique of, and a sophisticated

alternative to, substantialist views of the self, this radical view of the human
person did not go unchallenged. Indeed, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist
philosophers vigorously disputed the Abhidharma or Buddhist reductionist
approach. In this section, we will examine four interconnected problems for
Buddhist reductionism, and for strongly reductionist theories of the person in
general. These four problems are: personal and experiential continuity, first-
person consciousness, mereological reductionism, and the reification
of dharmas. I argue that a turn to the enactive approach will contribute to the
development of an anti-substantialist account of the person that overcomes
these problems.
The first problem for the Buddhist reductionist has to do with personal
continuity and, even more fundamentally, the continuity of the pre-personal
body–mind stream that is the ground of personal continuity. An advocate of
the self (ātmavādin) will want an account of diachronic personal identity (or at
least personal continuity)5 in the absence of a self. And as we have seen, the
Buddhist reductionist holds that personal continuity is reducible to
psychological continuity (memory, skills, habits, personality traits), which is
in turn reducible to causal connections between impermanent mental and
physical events. One problem for this approach is that there are just too many
causal connections. By their own view, the world is taken to be a causally
interdependent network of events. How are we to individuate different streams
of events?
The Buddhist reductionist has a two-part response to this problem. At the
conventional (saṃvṛti) level, streams are individuated by the density of causal
connections and by the way in which some sets of interconnected mental and
physical events are able to ground relatively stable capacities or functions,
such as perception and motility.6 Furthermore, at the ultimate (paramārtha)
level, there simply is no ontologically correct way to individuate streams.
                                                            
5
 Continuity is a weaker relation than identity in that continuity comes in degrees, while identity is all or
nothing. Non-substantialist theories of the person typically account for diachronic personal identity in terms
of continuity. 
6
 Though the reductionist still owes us an account of how to get from causal connections to the kind of
semantic and (broadly) narrative connections that seem to play an important role in any plausible account of
psychological continuity. 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

Individuating streams (carving them out of the causal manifold) is an

inherently pragmatic and interest-relative activity, and thus at this level of
analysis, there is no fact of the matter about the identity of streams.
However, there is a deeper problem here, pointed out by the Vaiśeṣika
philosopher, Śrīdhara (c.990ce):

[Buddhist:] As a result of there being a causal connection, a later memory [is a

memory] of what was experienced at an earlier moment. The son does not,
however, remember what was experienced by the father; this is because there is
no causal connection between the cognitions of a father and son, and their bodies,
though admittedly so [connected], are not [themselves constituted of]
consciousness.
[Śrīdhara:] This is not well-reasoned, for in the absence of self, there would be no
determinate notion (niścaya) of a causal connection. At the time of the cause, the
effect has yet to occur, and when its time comes, the cause has gone. Aside from
the two of them, some unitary perceiver is denied; so who would observe the
causal connection between those two things occurring in sequence? (Ganeri 2007:
177)

In order to form a determinate notion of a causal sequence or stream, Śrīdhara

argues, one must be able to experience a causal sequence.7 And yet, on the
radically reductionist view of the Ābhidharmikas, there are only momentary
(kṣanika) events in causal interaction.8 How could a series of discrete mental
events come to form a concept of a causal sequence if no mental event lasts
more than a single moment? The continuity problem, then, is
whether experiential continuity can be reductively explained in terms
of causal continuity. If it cannot, the Buddhist reductionist view looks to be
self-undermining.9

                                                            
7
 It might be argued that the concept of a causal sequence is innate, but this response is not available to the
empiricist Ābhidharmikas. Even if it is claimed that the concept of a causal sequence is inherited from a
past life, the concept, at some point, must have been derived from experience. Thus the move to an innate
concept of causal sequence simply pushes back the problem. 
8
 There is in fact a debate about whether dharmas have only momentary existence, as argued by the
Sautrāntikas, or whether, as argued by the Sarvāstivādins, dharmas exist in the past, present, and future. In
either case, though, dharmas are only causally efficacious in the fleeting present. Thus there remains a
problem of continuity on either view. 
9
 Śrīdhara intends this argument to establish the necessity of an enduring substantial self. However, as I
argue below in my discussion of time-consciousness, what is required is not a substantial self, but a more
robust account of the experiential continuity. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

The second problem for Buddhist reductionism involves I-consciousness,

or first-person experiences and thoughts. If a particular token of the first-
person pronoun ‘I’ does not refer to the utterer's self, what, if anything, does it
refer to? It seems obvious that when an individual correctly uses ‘I’, she is
referring to herself. But, as the Buddhist reductionist will quickly point out,
from this it does not follow that when she uses ‘I’ she refers to a substantial
self. Self-reference is not necessarily reference to an ontologically
independent self. So even if one rejects the existence of such a self, one can
still give an account of first-person self-reference. Perhaps the first-person
pronoun is not a genuine referring term, or perhaps, as for Vasubandhu, ‘I’
refers to the continuum in which it occurs, rather than the self. The deeper
problem here concerns the centrality and continuity of the sense of self
(ahaṃkāra) and its connection to self-consciousness, or what Western
phenomenologists term ‘the first-person mode of givenness’ of experience.10
The great Nyāya critic of Buddhism, Uddyotakara, presses the difficulty
in the following passage:

The consciousness of ‘I’, which conforms to the distinctions of the nature of the
object, and which does not depend upon memory of marks, the possessor of the
marks, and their relationship, is direct acquaintance just as is the cognition of
physical form. Concerning what you yourself, with perfect confidence, establish
to be direct acquaintance, in virtue of what is it that it is [said to be] direct
acquaintance? You must establish it as being consciousness alone, which does not
depend upon the relationships among marks, etc., and which is self-presenting.
So then you think there is an I-cognition, but that its object is not the self? Well,
then show us its object! (Kapstein 2002: 98)

As Uddyotakara points out here, first-person self-reference must be

anchored in a non-criterial, non-inferential mode of self-acquaintance. But if
there is no self, what are I-cognitions directly acquainted with? What is the
subject of experience? As Uddyotakara himself mentions, one later Buddhist
response to this problem is to argue that consciousness is inherently reflexive
or self-presenting (svasaṃvedana), and that this inherent reflexivity is the
basis of both explicit I-cognitions and the more inchoate diachronic sense of

                                                            
10
 ‘First-personal givenness’ is often used interchangeably with ‘subjectivity’. Cf. Zahavi (2005) for a
discussion of this. 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

self (ahaṃkāra). That is, as in Sartre's view, consciousness is always

consciousness of itself, but not necessarily consciousness of
a self (Sartre 1957). Later developments aside, however, it is unclear that the
ruthlessly reductive, impersonalist causalism of the Abhidharma can
accommodate the first-personal givenness or the first-personal continuity of
human experience.11
The third problem for Buddhist reductionism arises from the commitment
to mereological reductionism. The properties of a whole, including causal
properties, are thought to be reductively determined by the intrinsic properties
of its components. Yet the thoroughgoing reductionism of Abhidharma seems
to be in tension, not just with non-Buddhist substantialism, but also with the
dynamic, processual, and multi-level analysis of human beings found in early
Buddhism. Dependent co-arising (pratītyasamutpāda) is a multi-level account
of interdependence, ranging from the arising of a single moment of experience
to the entire cycle of rebirth. The radical interpretation of dependent
origination and anti-substantialism found in Buddhist reductionism may not
have the resources required to account for the dependent origination of the
human person. And, in any case, as I argue below, there are good reasons to
question mereological reductionism, at least with regard to some systems.
The fourth problem for Buddhist reductionism, namely the reification
of dharmas, is closely related to the third. Recall that Abhidharma ontology
rests on a sharp dichotomy between, on the one hand, those entities that have a
dependent nature (parabhāva) and are therefore merely conventionally real
and, on the other hand, those ultimately real entities that have an independent
intrinsic nature (svabhāva). Clearly, mereological reductionism requires an
irreducible reduction-base and, as the Ābhidharmikas insist, the entities that
form the reduction-base for everyday things must not themselves borrow their
nature from other things. That is, macro-level properties, including the
properties of wholes, must reductively supervene on the intrinsic, non-
relational properties of the base level. Thus, ultimately real entities must be
independent and basic, as well as individuated by their unique and intrinsic,
non-relational properties. Ultimate reality, then, is understood in terms of
substance (dravya) and essence (svabhāva).12 Therefore, the worry is that this
picture constitutes an unwarranted reification of some phenomena
                                                            
11
 But see Siderits (this volume) for an attempt to address this problem. 
12
 A dharma is substantial, not because it is the substratum of properties, but because it is ontologically
basic and independent. It is these latter features that are rejected by Madhyamaka. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

(basic dharmas) and, at the same time, an unwarranted nihilism about other
phenomena (conventional entities).13 Moreover, as with the Abhidharma's
merelogical reductionism, we will argue that there are good reasons to
question this reified account of phenomena. Indeed, if the Buddhist
Mādhyamikas are right, the Abhidharma view is not just unwarranted, but also
incoherent.

5. The Dependent Origination of Autonomous Systems

Given the shortcomings of the Abhidharma theory of persons, what is required

is a middle way between their reductionist fictionalism and the substantialism
of ātman and Cartesian ego theories. Moreover, developments in complex
systems theory and biology call into question strongly reductionist approaches
such as that of the Abhidharma. For, unlike flames or chariots (two of the
common analogues to the human person), biological systems display a high
degree of self-organized autonomy. On the enactive approach discussed
below, living beings are neither enduring substances, nor merely aggregative
systems, but rather self-regulating unities. Of course, as we have seen, the
Abhidharma analysis recognizes that psycho-physical systems are self-
perpetuating, and characterized by functional integration and feedback loops.
Yet this traditional Buddhist analysis is combined with a strict mereological
reductionism that must, in the end, deny genuine causal status to macro-level
entities or structures. Therefore, to avoid this problem, in this section I will
turn to the theory of autonomous systems, an integral component of the
enactive approach, for support in developing an anti-substantialist, but non-
reductionist, account of persons.
According to both Buddhist and enactivist accounts, sentient beings are
organized dynamic systems. Hence an understanding of the system requires
that we pay close attention, not just to the system's components, but also to its
organization.14 We may begin with the distinction
betweenheteronomous and autonomous systems. A heteronomous system is
exogenously controlled, and can clearly be modeled as an input-output
system. In contrast, an autonomous system primarily will be understood in
                                                            
13
 Of course, the Buddhist reductionist will resist these claims. The charges of reification and nihilism
depend on a certain account of the relationship between the two truths that will be explored below. 
14
 The following discussion of autonomous systems closely follows Thompson (2007) and Varela
(1999, 2001). 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

terms of its ‘endogenous, self-organizing and self-controlling dynamics’, and

‘does not have inputs and outputs in the usual sense’ (Thompson 2007:43).
Instead of an input-output model, autonomous systems are understood in
terms of perturbation and response. External factors perturb the ongoing
endogenous dynamics of the system, yielding a response that must be
understood in terms of the system's dynamics and its overall organization.
More specifically:

In complex systems theory, the term autonomous refers to a generic type of

organization. The relations that define the autonomous organization hold between
processes (such as metabolic reactions in a cell or neuronal firings in a cell
assembly) rather than static entities. In an autonomous system, the constituent
processes (i) recursively depend on each other for their generation and their
realization as a network, (ii) constitute the system as a unity in whatever domain
they exist, and (iii) determine a domain of possible interactions with the
environment (Thompson 2007: 44; cf. Varela 1979)

In biochemistry, Maturana and Varela (1980) call this type of autonomy

‘autopoiesis’ (self-production). Autopoiesis involves what Varela terms a
‘logical bootstrap’ or ‘loop’ in which a network or process creates a boundary
and is subsequently constrained by that boundary. This is the
system'sorganizational closure ((ii) above). For instance, at the cellular level,
a self-organizing process of biochemical reactions produces a membrane that,
in turn, constrains the process that created it (Varela 2001). The completion of
this loop gives rise to a distinct biological entity that maintains its own
boundary in its environment. This new level of coherence is a ‘virtual
identity’ that is to be understood in terms of both boundary-maintenance or
organizational closure and a new mode of interaction with the environment. In
addition, autopoietic systems are characterized by operational closure ((i)
above): ‘the property that among the conditions affecting the operation of any
constituent process in the system there will always be one or more processes
that also belong to the system’ (Di Paolo 2009: 15). Furthermore, autonomous
systems are always coupled to their environments ((iii) above). As Thompson
explains, ‘Two or more systems are coupled when the conduct of each is a
function of the conduct of the other’ (Thompson 2007: 45). When two
systems (organism and environment) develop a history of recurrent
interactions leading to a ‘structural congruence’ between them, we
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

have structural coupling (Thompson 2007; Maturana 1975; Maurana and

Varela 1987).
Sentient beings, on this view, are understood not as heteronomous,
mechanical input-output systems, but rather as dynamic, autonomous
systems—necessarily coupled to the environment, but also self-controlling. In
addition, autonomous systems, in particular living and sentient systems,
involveemergent processes. As Thompson describes, ‘An emergent process
belongs to an ensemble or network of elements, arises spontaneously or self-
organizes from the locally defined and globally constrained or controlled
interactions of those elements, and does not belong to a single element’
(Thompson 2007: 60). Emergent processes, and the systems in which they
arise, exhibit two forms of determination. Local-to-global determination
involves the emergence of novel macro-level processes and structures based
on changes in the system components and relations. Global-to-local
determination involves macro-level processes and structures constraining
local interactions. Thus self-organizing systems display circular causality:
local interactions give rise to global patterns or order, while the global order
constrains the local interactions (Haken 1983).
The type of self-production and self-maintenance found in living systems
goes beyond the type of self-organization seen in non-living systems. The
degree of autonomy found in living beings is, according to the enactive
approach, a form of dynamic co-emergence.
Dynamic co-emergence best describes the sort of emergence we see in
autonomy. In an autonomous system, the whole not only arises from the
(organizational closure of the) parts, but the parts also arise from the whole.
The whole is constituted by the relations of the parts, and the parts are
constituted by the relations they bear to one another in the whole. Hence, the
parts do not exist in advance, prior to the whole, as independent entities that
retain their identity in the whole. Rather, part and whole co-emerge and
mutually specify each other. (Thompson 2007: 65)
A candle flame (a common Buddhist analogy for non-substantial personal
continuity) or a Bénard cell, as dissipative systems, will display self-
organization and self-maintenance to a degree, but the key boundary
conditions that keep these systems away from equilibrium are exogenous. In
contrast, in truly autonomous systems, ‘the constraints that actually guide
energy/matter flows from the environment through the constitutive processes
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

of the system are endogenously created and maintained’ (Ruiz-Mirazo and

Moreno 2004: 238).
Returning to Buddhist reductionism, recall that Vasubandhu's criterion for
the mere conventionality of a phenomenon was its actual or analytical
decomposability. Moreover, the issue of decomposability, on the Abhidharma
approach, is closely tied to reducibility. Full decomposability requires that the
components of a complex entity are fully specifiable independently of their
relations to one another and within the whole. Full reducibility further requires
that the properties and (apparent) causal powers of the whole be determined
by the intrinsic properties and causal powers of the independent and
irreducible components.
However, in complex dynamic systems with nonlinear interactions, such
as multicellular organisms, the immune system, and the brain, full
decomposability is not possible. Nonlinear systems are characterized by non-
additive and non-proportional interactions—that is, nonlinear interactions—
and thus the system's properties cannot be aggregatively derived from the
properties of its parts (Thompson 2007). As Thompson points out:

An autonomous system is at least minimally decomposable, if not

nondecomposable. More precisely, when one adopts an autonomy perspective,
one ipso facto characterizes the system as at least minimally decomposable. The
reason is that an autonomous system is an organizationally and operationally
closed network; hence it is the connectivity of its constituent processes that
determines its operation as a network. (Thompson 2007: 421)

If this view is correct, sentient beings, as living autonomous systems, are not
amenable to the reductive analysis of the Abhidharma. Sentient beings are not
sufficiently decomposable (if decomposable at all) to be exhaustively
analyzed and explained in terms of the intrinsic properties and causal powers
of independently specifiable components. In addition, the self-organizing,
self-maintaining, and self-regulating capacities of living beings rely on both
local-to-global and global-to-local influence, and therefore the causal
capacities of the system qua system are both real and not determined by the
intrinsic properties of their most basic components. In the case of autonomous
systems such as human beings, we have mereological dependence without
strict mereological reduction. On the other hand, it is important to note that
the enactive approach is not a return to substantialism. Autonomous systems
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

are not static, ontologically independent substances. Rather the autonomy and
irreducibility of living beings derives from dense networks of relationality and
interdependence. That is, autonomous systems are dependently originated
(pratītyasamutpanna).15

6. Emptiness and the Virtual Self

A turn toward the enactive approach and its autonomy perspective can help to
find a middle way between substantialism and reductionism about persons.
Persons can be understood in dynamic-relational terms as autonomous
systems. So far, however, the focus has been on persons as sentient beings—
that is, as embodied and embedded biological systems. I will now turn to the
importance of the deeply entrenched human sense of self. In addition, just as I
have used the enactive approach to expand upon and modify a Buddhist
analysis, I will in turn use later developments in Buddhist thought (in
particular the Madhyamaka school) to correct what I take to be shortcomings
in Francisco Varela's enactivist account of the self.
Varela (1999, 2001), explicitly drawing on Buddhist philosophy, argues
that the human self is both emergent and virtual or empty (śūnya). He
therefore rejects the existence of a substantial, bounded, enduring self. The
self, he argues, emerges from the human organism's endogenous
neurobiological dynamics and from its embeddedness in its natural and social-
linguistic environment. Thus we create and re-create ourselves from moment
to moment through the dynamic interaction of brain, body, language, and
world. He writes:

Why do emergent selves, virtual identities, pop up all over the place creating
worlds, whether at the mind/body level, the cellular level, or the transorganism
level? This phenomenon is something so productive that it doesn't cease creating
entirely new realms: life, mind, and societies. Yet these emergent selves are based
on processes so shifty, so ungrounded, that we have an apparent paradox between
the solidity of what appears to show up and its groundlessness. (Varela 2001)

                                                            
15
See Siderits (this volume) for a reductionist response. It is worth reiterating that if there are autonomous
systems, they would not be somehow outside the network of cause and effect. That is, even if merelogical
reductionism is false for autonomous systems, those systems are still dependently originated.
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

These systems behave as if a central agent or controller is directing them—yet

no such central agent can be found. This is what Varela means by the virtual
or empty self: ‘a coherent global pattern that emerges from the activity of
simple local components, which seems to be centrally located, but is nowhere
to be found, and yet is essential as a level of interaction for the behavior of the
whole’ (Varela1999: 53).
Of course, it is natural to think that while an ant colony or an amoeba may
have only a virtual self, surely we humans are the real deal. But Varela is
avowedly in agreement with the Buddhist theory of non-self. On his account,
‘either we are unique in the living and natural world, or else our very
immediate sense of a central, personal self is the same kind of illusion of a
center, accountable by more of the same kind of analysis [i.e. in terms of
autopoiesis]’ (Varela 1999: 61). Moreover, ‘what we call “I” can be analyzed
as arising out of our recursive linguistic abilities and their unique capacity for
self-description and narration’ (Varela 1999: 61). Indeed, this linguistically
constructed self serves as what he terms a ‘virtual interface’ between the body
and the natural and social environment in which it is embedded.
Now the virtuality or emptiness of the self can be taken in a weaker or a
stronger sense, and it is not always clear which sense Varela intends. In the
weaker sense, the emergent self is virtual merely because it is distributed or
not localized, and thus insubstantial. The self is not an illusion, but its
supposed singularity and localizability is a fiction or projection. This would
rule out naive homuncular or substantialist accounts of the self, without
entailing fictionalism about the self per se. In the stronger sense, the self is
virtual in that it is an illusion or useful fiction. The insect colony behaves as
if someone were in charge, as if it had a unified perspective, and so on, but
this is an illusion. Likewise, our sense of self, our sense of having (or being) a
unified first-person perspective, and being a center of agency are also
illusions.
Despite some ambiguity in Varela's characterization of the virtual self, I
take him to be arguing for the stronger sense of virtuality. First, he repeatedly
points out the ways in which mainstream findings in cognitive science
challenge the notion of the self as a unified and coherent point of view—that
is, not just inner homunculus explanations of a unified perspective, but also
the very existence of such a perspective is challenged (Varela 1999: 36–41).
Second, Varela notes that he and Daniel Dennett—the arch-fictionalist—have
come to the same conclusions regarding the self (Varela1999, 2001). Thus, on
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

Varela's view, the self is a virtual or fictional construct that emerges from the
distributed activity of a natural, autopoietic system and, in the case of the
human self, the system's use of language and its embeddedness in a linguistic
community.
Now the resonance between Varela's account and Buddhism should be
obvious. And, of course, Varela draws heavily from Buddhist ideas and
practices in the formulation and defense of his account of the virtuality of the
self, especially the concept of emptiness (śūnyatā) as developed in the
Madhyamaka, or Middle Way, school of Buddhism. Indeed, he argues that the
emptiness of the self ‘is the golden thread that unites our self-understanding
with an external and scientific account of mental functioning’, and further that
ethical wisdom rests on first-hand acquaintance with the empty nature of the
self (Varela 1999: 36). However, a proper understanding of emptiness casts
doubt on Varela's account of the self as merely virtual.
As mentioned at the outset of this paper, the account of human beings as
selfless persons (pudgalanairātmya) is held by all major Buddhist schools, but
there has been a great deal of disagreement as to the full ontological
implications of the rejection of a substantial self. In contrast to the
reductionists, some Mādhyamika thinkers allow for an ontologically
deflationary account of the self. The self is said to have an experiential and
practical reality, while they still insist that this minimal self is not to be
reified. As the Dalai Lama explains the latter view, ‘both body and mind are
things that belong to the I, and the I is the owner, but, aside from mind and
body, there is no separate independent entity of I. There is every indication
that the I exists; yet, under investigation, it cannot be found’ (Gyatso 2000:
65). This minimal self—what is called the ‘mere I’ or ‘mere self’
(Tibetan: nga tsam)—is an emergent phenomenon that, while real, is not a
substantial separate thing, and therefore disappears under analysis.16
The difference between the Abhidharma reductionist fictionalism and the
later Buddhist deflationary non-reductionism turns on competing accounts of
the concept of emptiness. To be empty, on the reductionist view, is to lack
ontological independence and an intrinsic nature and, therefore, to be nothing
more than a conceptual construct or convenient fiction. In contrast, the
Madhyamaka school—which Varela, Thompson, and Rosch claim as one

                                                            
16
 The analysis here is the type of ontological analysis that looks for the substantial reality of the object.
Thus, insofar as the self has no substantial reality, it is not found in this type of analysis. 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

basis of their thought in The Embodied Mind (1991: 217–235)—takes a

different approach to the concept of emptiness. The Mādhyamikas agree that
to be empty is to lack svabhāva or inherent existence, but go on to argue that
the notion of svabhāva is itself untenable. Rather than arguing that
conventional phenomena can only be accounted for in terms of ultimate
phenomena, the Mādhyamikas argue that positing ultimate, non-empty
phenomena actually precludes a coherent account of the conventional world.17
The Mādhyamikas, therefore, argue for the selflessness of persons
(pudgalanairātmya) and the selflessness (i.e. emptiness) of all phenomena
(dharmanairātmya).
But what does it mean to say that all things are empty, that they
lack svabhāva? Of course, within the Abhidharma framework, to say this
amounts to nihilism. To be conventionally real is to be purely derivative,
indeed to be a mere convenient fiction. Yet, how could everything be a mere
convenient fiction? Within the Mādhyamika framework, in contrast, for a
thing to be empty is not for it to be unreal, but rather for its existence and
nature necessarily to depend on other things. There is a three-way implication
between emptiness, dependent origination, and conventional reality. As Jay
Garfield explains:

When we say that a phenomenon is empty, we mean that when we try to specify
its essence, we come up with nothing. When we look for the substance that
underlies the properties, or the bearer of the parts, we find none. When we ask
what it is that gives a thing its identity, we stumble not upon ontological facts but
upon conventions. For a thing to be non-empty would be for it to have an essence
discoverable upon analysis; for it to be a substance independent of its attributes,
or a bearer of parts; for its identity to be self-determined by its essence. A non-
empty entity can be fully characterized nonrelationally. (Garfield 2002: 38)

So, according to the Mādhyamikas, any thing that exists depends on other
things for its existence and nature, and depends (in part) on our practices of
individuation for its identity-conditions.18

                                                            
17
 It is in this sense that the Ābhidharmikas can be accused of nihilism, despite the fact that their
reductionism is not intended to be a form of eliminativism. 
18
 Hence, the Mādhyamika holds that all phenomena are interdependent and also rejects the idea of the
‘ready-made world’ characteristic of metaphysical realism. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

Returning to the question of the self, one can see why Varela's
identification of virtuality with emptiness is problematic. On the Mādhyamika
account of emptiness, which Varela himself endorses, emptiness simply does
not entail virtuality in either its weaker or stronger senses. To call the self
virtual is to imply that it is either unreal or less real than other things. But
showing that the self emerges from, and depends on, lower-level processes,
that it is not an independent substance, that in trying to specify its identity-
conditions we make reference to our interests and practices, or that it has no
absolute ontological primacy, does not cast doubt on its existence. Rather, it
shows that the self is empty, just like everything else. To think otherwise, on
the Madhyamaka view, is to accept an ontological foundationalism and
essentialism that they argue is incoherent.19
The larger point here is that, insofar as all phenomena are embedded in a
network of relations (causal, mereological, emergence, etc.), there is nothing
especially virtual about the emergent self. In aligning his account of the
emptiness of the self with the fictionalist views of the Abhidharma schools
(Varela, et al. 1991: 58–81) and Dennett, Varela implicitly reifies lower levels
of stable organization, while simultaneously negating the conventional reality
of the emergent self. In contrast, Thompson is in agreement with the
Madhyamaka school when he insists that, ‘Phenomena at all scales are not
[independent] entities or substances but relatively stable processes, and since
processes achieve stability at different levels of complexity, while still
interacting with processes at other levels, all are equally real and none has
absolute ontological primacy’ (Thompson 2007: 441). To claim, as Varela
seems to do, that the emergent global pattern is virtual, but that the
components from which it emerges are actual, is to miss the full implications
of the dynamic-relational ontology at the heart of both Buddhism and the
enactive approach.

7. The Minimal Self

Mādhyamikas argue that the self is empty, but that it is neither a mere fiction,
nor reducible to the body–mind continuum.20 The great Tibetan Madhyamaka

                                                            
19
 See Garfield (1995), Siderits (2003), and Westerhoff (2009) for in-depth discussions of Madhyamaka
arguments. 
20
 The Mādhyamikas do say that the self is illusion-like in that it appears to have substantial existence, but
is in fact empty. But, again, according to this view all phenomena are illusion-like in this sense. 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

philosopher, Tsongkhapa, distinguishes three approaches to the question of

the self: (1) the substantialism of non-Buddhist schools, (2) Buddhist
reductionism, and (3) the view of his tradition of Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka
(Jinpa 2002: 109). The first type of view holds that the self is a kind of entity
that exists independently of the skandhas, and combines non-reductionism and
realism. The second type of view holds that the self does not exist at all and
that persons are fully reducible to the skandhas. Terms such as ‘I’, ‘self’, and
proper names, in fact, refer to the impermanent mental and physical elements.
This type of view, according to Tsongkhapa, combines realism (about the
elements as the reduction base) with reductionism. Finally, the Prāsaṅgika
Madhyamaka school holds that the self is dependent upon, but not reducible
to, theskandhas. This view combines ontological deflationism (i.e. all things
are empty of inherent existence) with non-reductionism. As Tsongkhapa
writes:

There are two senses of the term ‘self’: a self conceived in terms of intrinsic
nature that exists by means of intrinsic being, and a self in the sense of the object
of our simple, natural thought ‘I am’. Of these two, the first is the object of
negation by reasoning, while the second is not negated, for it is accepted as
conventionally real. (Jinpa 2002: 71)

Unlike their reductionist forebears, therefore, some Mādhyamikas accept

the minimal self as the object of the natural sense of self or I-consciousness.21
Here we see a Madhyamaka answer to Uddyotakara's challenge to identify the
referent of I-consciousness. I-thoughts do refer to the self rather than a mere
bundle of physical and mental events, but this minimal self is not an enduring
substance.
But once one has rejected the substantialist account of the self, why not
identify the self with the psycho-physical continuum? According to the
Mādhyamikas, the self cannot be identified with the aggregates, first because
they have incompatible properties. The self is, by hypothesis, single and
persisting, while the aggregates are multiple and fleeting.22 Identifying them
                                                            
21
 There is controversy both within the Madhyamaka school and in the Western literature on whether and
how Madhyamaka may differ from Abhidharma on the nature of the self. Thus the view I explore below
should be seen as a Madhyamaka view, but not the Madhyamaka view. 
22
 Mādhyamikas reject the ‘pearl’ view of the self (cf. Strawson 1999)—the view that the person consists of
a series of short-lived selves—and maintain, on phenomenological and pragmatic grounds, that the self is
persistent. But, since the self is a process, it perdures rather than endures. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

would lead to a multiplication of selves within the life of a single person—a

result taken to be absurd. Moreover, the self and the aggregates have different
persistence-conditions, and therefore cannot be identical. Secondly, it is
argued that memory presupposes the continuity of a first-person perspective or
I-consciousness that cannot be accounted for in impersonal, reductionist
terms. That is, the first-person perspective needed to account for genuine
memory disappears from the impersonal causalism of reductionism.23 Thirdly,
Tsongkhapa argues that our conventions and practices, such as assigning
moral responsibility, take the notion of a person and the ‘mere I’ as basic
(Jinpa 2002). Finally, the Mādhyamikas argue that both substantialist and
reductionist approaches to the self fail to account for the inherently indexical,
perspectival nature of the minimal self. Āryadeva argues: ‘That which is self
to you is not self to me; from this fixed rule it follows that that is not self.
Indeed, the construction (kalpanā) [of a sense of self] arises out of the
impermanent things’ (Ganeri 2007: 191). Candrakīrti expands on this
argument in his commentary on Āryadeva:

That which is self to you, the focal point of your sense of ‘I’ (ahaṃkāra) and
self-interest (ātmasneha), that indeed is not self to me; for it is not the focal point
of my sense of ‘I’ and self-interest. This then is the fixed rule from which it
follows that it is not [a real thing]. There is no essence to such a self as it is not
invariably present. One should give up the superimposition of [such] a self, for it
is something the content of which is unreal (asadartha). (Ganeri 2007: 192)

Having a sense (or concept) of self entails being able to draw a distinction
between self and other, and to experience things as mine and not mine.
However, substantialitist or entitative views of the self, according to
Āryadeva, cannot ground this indexical, perspectival distinction because they
take the self to be a kind of thing.
Yet the reductionist view, despite denying the existence of the self, fares
no better. The project of Buddhist reductionism is to account for persons in
impersonal terms, that is, in terms of causal connections between fleeting
mental and physical events. In shifting to an impersonal and non-perspectival
standpoint, the reductionist loses sight of the first-person perspective, and it is
unclear in this case how to derive the perspectival from the non-perspectival.
                                                            
23
 On this point, the Mādhyamikas agree with the Nyāya critics of Buddhist reductionism. 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

There appears to be an explanatory gap between the first- and third-person

standpoints. Of course, for the reductionist, the fact that the minimal self is not
found when one shifts to a non-perspectival, third-person discourse is grounds
to deny its real existence. However, the Mādhyamikas deny that this discourse
has any absolute metaphysical or explanatory priority. The problem with
reductionist accounts of personal identity, then, is that they deny the
importance of the first-person perspective.
One helpful and important aspect of the Madhyamaka approach is that it
shifts the discussion from a concern with third-person, metaphysical issues
about the existence of selves and persons to a concern with the first-person,
lived sense of self (ahaṃkāra). The attempt to find a metaphysical ground for
the existence of the self either in a mental substance or in a reduction to
impersonal aggregates is eschewed by the deflationist Mādhyamikas as
merely two instances of the error of reification. Instead, the Madhyamaka
account of the empty minimal self is given in terms of its experiential and
practical reality. It is fundamentally a matter of the structure and continuity of
the first-person perspective.
In discussing Tsongkhapa's approach to the minimal self Thupten Jinpa
remarks:

One of the fundamental premises of Tsongkhapa's thought…is that an

individual's sense of self, or I-consciousness, is innate. It is instinctual and
natural. It is neither linguistic nor even conceptual, if by conceptual one
presupposes [reflective] self-awareness. It is a natural, reflexive consciousness,
almost like an underlying sense of one's own existence. (Jinpa 2002: 123)

Our most basic sense of self is pre-conceptual, pre-linguistic, and natural.24

But we must proceed with caution here. Despite holding that the sense of self
is natural and pre-linguistic, Tsongkhapa denies that each moment of
consciousness is self-presenting (svaprakāśa). Like Mādhyamikas such as
Candrakīrti and Śāntideva, he rejects the idea that all consciousness inherently
involves pre-reflective self-consciousness (svasaṃvedana).25 The ‘mere I’

                                                            
24
 Thompson defines sentience as ‘the feeling of being alive’ (2007: 161), while neuroscientists
Damasio (1999) and Panksepp (1998) posit a primitive ‘feeling of self’. 
25
 See Dreyfus (1996), Garfield (2006), MacKenzie (2007), MacKenzie (2008), and Williams (1997)for
further discussion. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

(Tibetan: nga tsam) here refers to the ahaṃkāra, not svasaṃvedana.26 Here
again, Tsongkhapa's view of the self differs from Varela's. Recall that, on
Varela's account, the ‘I’ arises from our ‘recursive linguistic abilities and their
unique capacity for self-description and narration’ (Varela 1999: 61), whereas
the minimal self in Tsongkhapa's account is experientially prior to linguistic
construction.27
Furthermore, on Tsongkhapa's view, the minimal self has a diachronic
dimension.28 He explains:

The self that is the focus of Devadatta's instinctual sense ‘I am’ when not thinking
of a specific temporal stage [of his existence] is the mere I that is within him
since beginningless time. The individual selves [of Devadatta] when he
appropriated the body of a celestial being and so on are only instances of the
former [mere I]. Therefore, when an I-consciousness arises in Devadatta focusing
specifically on a particular form of existence [e.g., as a human], the object of his
I-consciousness is a particular instance of Devadatta's self. (Jinpa 2002: 123)

The idea here is that the mere I is not confined to the present, but rather
provides a basic form of continuity throughout the different phases or
temporal stages of one's life. Indeed, it is precisely the continuity of this basic
first-person perspective that explains why the various forms of existence are
parts of the same life history. Each of the ‘individual selves’ is based upon the
minimal self, each tokening of an I-thought is a particular instance or
expression of this mere I.
Tsongkhapa further argues that the minimal self allows us to explain the
coherence of our personal plans and projects. When we plan for the future or
undertake a particular project, he argues, we do not ‘make distinctions
between the self of this time or that time. Rather, these endeavors are
motivated by the simple wish for the self to be happy and overcome suffering.
And since the self as a generality does pervade all temporal stages [of a
person's existence], these acts also cannot be said to be deluded’ (Jinpa 2002:
                                                            
26
 Unlike, Tsongkhapa, I do accept the notion of svasaṃvedana. On my view, the minimal self (ahaṃkāra)
emerges from the more basic inherent reflexivity of consciousness. Thus my view is closer to the
Madhyamaka of Śāntarākṣita (in India) or the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions (in Tibet). 
27
 This is not to say that linguistic construction plays no role in Tsongkhapa's account, but only to point out
that the minimal self is pre-linguistic. 
28
 The Madhyamaka account of the minimal self, therefore, differs from Antonio Damasio's notion of the
core self in that the core self has no long-term temporal extension. 
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

124). For the Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika such as Tsongkhapa, these pragmatic,

experiential considerations concerning the self are central.

8. Self-Appropriation

On a Madhyamaka account, the empty self is neither independent of, nor

reducible to, the fiveskandhas. What, then, is the dependence relation between
the pre-personal skandha-santāna and the self? A common analogy for the
relation between the self and the skandhas is the mutual dependence of fire
and fuel.29 Just as the fire appropriates (upā + dā) the fuel to perpetuate itself,
the self appropriates as its own the various mental and physical events that
make up the skandha-santāna. Further, as Jan Westerhoff notes in this
context:

Not only does the self depend for its existence on the constituents, but the
constituents acquire their existence as distinct parts of the stream of mental
and physical events only by being associated with a single self, which,
regarded as a constitutive property, produces the basis for postulating the
individual in which the various properties of the self inhere. It is precisely
this reason which keeps the Mādhyamika from regarding the constituents as
ultimate existents (dravya) and the self as merely imputed (prajñāpti).
(Westerhoff 2009: 163)

Moreover, as Candrakīrti comments on Nāgārjuna's use of the analogy:

That which is appropriated is the fuel, the five [types of] appropriated element.
That which is constructed in the appropriating of them is said to be the
appropriator, the thinker, the performing (niṣpādaka) self. In this is generated
[the activity of] ‘I’-ing, because from the beginning it has in its scope a sense of
self. (Ganeri 2007)

The self, then, is the appropriator (upādātṛ), and the various elements are the
appropriated (upādāna-skandha), and yet Candrakīrti insists ‘the self is not a
real, existent thing’. That is, the self lacks inherent existence (i.e. it is empty),

                                                            
29
 See Nāgārjuna's MMK X: 15 on the relevance of the analogy and X: 10, and X: 12–14 on the issue of
mutual dependence. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

and it is not any kind of thing or object. Rather, the self is ‘I’-ing (ahaṃmāna)
or ongoing self-appropriative activity (Ganeri 2007). Furthermore, ‘I’-ing is
an inherently perspectival activity: it appropriates phenomena as ‘me’ and
‘mine’, incorporates them into its own ongoing dynamic, by indexing (or
tagging) them to the I. Appropriation, then, functions as a self-referential loop.
According to Jonardon Ganeri, the Madhyamaka theory is
a performativist theory of the self (2007). On his interpretation,

When I say ‘I am in pain’, I do not assert ownership of a particular painful

experience; rather, I lay claim to the experience within a stream. This is a
performativist account of the language of the self, in which ‘I’ statements are
performative utterances, and not assertions, and the function of the term ‘I’
is not to refer. (Ganeri 2007: 202)

Of course, with its emphasis on self-appropriation, Ganeri's performativist

reading is congenial to my enactivist account of the self, but it differs in two
ways. First, I do not want to deny that ‘I’ statements can refer. Second, while I
agree with Ganeri (and Varela) that language is central to the full constitution
of the self, I also agree with Tsongkhapa that the minimal self has its roots in
the pre-linguistic structure of lived experience.
More specifically, the root of the minimal self is the recursive nature of
lived experience. A recursive process is one wherein the results of the process
are fed back into the process itself. On the Buddhist view, the vicious cycle
of saṃsāra is understood in terms of the recursive process of dependent
origination. Indeed, living itself is a recursive process. As Hans Jonas
remarks, ‘organisms are entities whose being is their own doing…the being
that they earn from this doing is not a possession they then own in separation
from the activity by which it was generated, but is the continuation of that
very activity itself’ (Jonas 1996: 86). In order to survive, the organism must
maintain its own dynamic organization in the face of, but also in virtue of,
continuous matter-energy turnover. The viable organism, through its
organizational and operational closure, is able to subsume or appropriate both
bits of the environment and elements of the organism itself. Thus, ‘I’-ing is
perhaps more like the organic process of metabolizing than it is like inorganic
combustion.
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

In addition to the recursivity of biological processes, the stream of

experience has its own recursive structure.30 The ‘stream’ of experience is a
temporal flow. Yet, as Śrīdhara pointed out in his criticism of the
Abhidharma, it is hard to see how a series of discrete momentary experiences
could constitute the type of ongoing point of view required to even form the
concept of a causal sequence. Furthermore, the problem involves not only
external objects and processes, but also how we can be aware of our own
experiences as forming a unified temporal flow. Without this, we will be
unable to account for the emergence of the minimal self through self-
appropriation. What is required is an account of how impressions are retained
within the temporal flow of experience—that is, we must have an account of
time-consciousness (Husserl 1991).31
The basic unit of temporal experience for Husserl (as for James) is not a
durationless point, but rather a moment with temporal thickness. The structure
of this ‘duration-block’ is protention-primal impression-retention. As Husserl
explains:

In this way, it becomes evident that concrete perception as original consciousness

(original givenness) of a temporally extended object is structured internally as
itself a streaming system of momentary perceptions (so-called primal
impressions). But each such momentary perception is the nuclear phase of a
continuity, a continuity of momentary gradated retentions on the one side, and
horizon of what is coming on the other side: a horizon of ‘protention’, which is
disclosed to be characterized as a constantly gradated coming. (Husserl 1977:
154)

The primal impression is restricted to the now-phase in a sequence. In

listening to a melody, the primal impression is directed to the currently
sounding note. Retention is directed toward the just-elapsed note. The elapsed
note is not actually present in consciousness, but is retained intentionally.
Protention is directed toward the future, the next note about to be heard.
Whereas the currently sounding note is given in the vivid immediacy of the
present, and the just past note is determinately retained, the upcoming note is
not given in a fully determinate manner.
                                                            
30
 Though of course, we do not want to make too sharp a distinction between the biological and the
experiential here. These are two aspects of one process of living. 
31
 See Zahavi (2005) for an illuminating discussion of these issues. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

This three-fold structure forms a unified whole, the continuous operation

of which allows for the experience of temporal continuity. The structure
constitutes the living present within which temporal experience ‘wells up’.
Further, on Husserl's view, the primal impression-protention-retention
structure of consciousness accounts for the temporal unification of the stream
of consciousness itself. Retention retains the prior phases of the stream, while
protention reaches out toward future moments of consciousness. It is through
this process, which Husserl calls longitudinal intentionality, that
consciousness is self-affecting, or temporally given to itself. Furthermore,
longitudinal intentionality makes possible what Husserl calls transverse
intentionality. It is the transverse intentionality of time-consciousness that
allows for the continuous experience of a temporal object, such as melody or a
spoken sentence. Because the now-phase of consciousness takes an object
(e.g. a note) and is retained in the stream, so too is the object of the now-phase
of consciousness. In sum, the threefold structure of time-consciousness is the
condition of the possibility of both the diachronic unification of the stream of
consciousness and the experienced continuity of temporal objects.
Husserl's analysis of time-consciousness shows that consciousness is itself
recursive. Consciousness takes in its impressions and retains them, marking
the impression as past, and making the past impression available for the
ongoing flow of consciousness. Indeed, the process of retention is iterative, in
that not only ‘pastness’, but the degree of ‘pastness’ is marked within the flow
of experience. The temporal flow of consciousness involves retentions of
retentions, thereby allowing the experience of a temporal sequence. Moreover,
this recursive process is self-referential. As James Mensch observes:

In retention the subject does not just have the experience of the retained, it
experiences itself having this experience, i.e., as retaining the retained.
Accordingly, when it grasps an object through a series of retained contents, it
prereflectively grasps itself in its action of retention. This grasp is a grasp of itself
as having experience, i.e., of itself as a subject. Such self-experience implies that
the self-referential character of retention grounds the subject as nonpublic, i.e., as
referring (or being present) only to itself. (Mensch 2001: 107)

The upshot of these brief Husserlian considerations is that self-making

(ahaṃkāra) (what Tsongkhapa calls the object of our ‘simple, natural thought
“I am” ’) is grounded in, and emerges from, the recursive temporality of the
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

stream of consciousness (citta-santāna). Moreover, this analysis of

experiential continuity answers Śrīdhara's objection. Even without a
substantial self, one can form the concept of a causal sequence because the
stream of experience is characterized by longitudinal and transverse
intentionality.32 The root of the minimal self, then, is not in linguistic self-
appropriation, but in temporal self-appropriation within an inherently
reflexive flow of consciousness. The ‘I’, or rather ‘I’-ing, emerges from self-
grasping, and in this sense we are, in Ganeri's phrase, ‘whirlpools of self-
appropriating action’ (2007: 204).
Yet, while temporal self-appropriation is necessary for a diachronically
extended minimal self, it is not clear that it is sufficient. What else might be
required? One type of view holds that language or concepts are required for
the emergence of even the minimal self. Another type of view, in contrast,
holds that pre-linguistic awareness of the body and action are required. In
support of this latter view, one may cite, for instance, recent research on
neonatal imitation. As Shaun Gallagher summarizes the significance of this
research:

Neonates less than an hour old are capable of imitating the facial gestures of
others in a way that rules out reflex or release mechanisms, and that involves a
capacity to learn to match presented gesture. For this to be possible the infant
must be able to do three things: (1) distinguish between self and non-self; (2)
locate and use certain parts of its own body proprioceptively, without vision; and
(3) recognize that the face it sees is of the same kind as its own face (the infant
will not imitate non-human objects). One possible interpretation of this finding is
that…the human infant is already equipped with a minimal self that is embodied,
enactive and ecologically tuned. (Gallagher 2000: 18)

Furthermore, as ecological psychologists point out, the visual field affords

information about the perceiver's environment as well as self-specifying
information. In seeing the cup, one is also gaining information about one's
own position in relation to the cup, information that is crucial to coordinating

                                                            
32
 Husserl thought that temporality was central to the nature of the transcendental ego. However, it is not at
all clear that Husserl's notion of a transcendental ego would constitute a substantial self. Moreover, like
Sartre and other phenomenologists, I take Husserl's account of time consciousness to be consistent with a
non-egological view of consciousness. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

perception and action. Thus, on this account, the minimal self is embodied and
enactive, as well as temporal.
Finally, to move beyond the minimal self to a more robust form of
personhood requires long-term memory, concepts, language, and social
embeddedness. Indeed, on the Buddhist-enactivist account I have sketched
here, the robust self or person is a complex conceptual, linguistic, and social
construction (abhisaṃskāra). In particular, the robust self involves narrative
construction. As Zahavi remarks, ‘human activities are enacted narratives; our
actions gain intelligibility by having a place in a narrative sequence’
(Zahavi 2005: 107). This narrative conception of persons fits well with
traditional Buddhist accounts that emphasize the conventional nature of
personhood. Indeed, the narrative construction of the self can be seen as a
further extension of the basic dynamic of self-appropriation discussed above.
On the downside, however, from a Buddhist point of view, this narrative
is the tale of a being trapped in saṃsāra. And a central factor that perpetuates
this vicious cycle is the conceit ‘I am’ (asmimāna). This conceit is the hub
around which the wheel of saṃsāra turns. It is grounded in self-grasping
(ātmagraha) and the recursive, open-ended proliferation of concepts
(prapañca) made possible by language. We have already seen how the
emergence of an embodied self through organizational closure brings with it
an intimate, but precarious relation to the environment. At this basic level,
closure creates identity, but also need and danger. At the level of the narrative
self, the conceptual and linguistic resources that make possible the fully
articulated narrative self also create a form of conceptual-linguistic closure
(through self-reference) which, in conjunction with deeply ingrained afflictive
tendencies (kleśa), amplifies and perpetuates the suffering and dysfunction
that characterizessaṃsāra. Simply put, we become self-centered: grasping
after what is self-serving, suppressing and denying what goes against the self,
and being ignorant of, or indifferent to, what does not serve the self.
Moreover, because the conceit ‘I am’ emerges along with the narrative self
itself—that is, the conceit is the default mode of the narrative self—its status
as a construction is occluded. The emergent, dependently originated, empty
self—the ‘whirlpool of self-appropriating action’—mistakes itself for a
bounded, enduring, substantial entity.33
                                                            
33
 It is worth noting that my view of consciousness is remarkably similar to George Dreyfus' in this
volume. We both agree (as does Krueger) that consciousness is inherently reflexive, but is not, at its most
basic level, egological. Rather, the sense of self arises from a more basic flow of reflexive consciousness.
MATTHEW MACKENZIE

Our deeply engrained tendencies to self-centeredness and self-

forgetfulness—that is, forgetting the ways in which the self is constructed and
can be reconstructed—lead us to enact saṃsāric narratives individually and
collectively. Therefore, while it might be heartening to realize that the
narrative self makes a difference, that it is not simply an epiphenomenon, it
may be less heartening to realize that the self causes and perpetuates real
suffering. Buddhist thinkers are so focused on understanding the nature and
emergence of self-making precisely because they see with such great clarity
the deep connection between selfhood and suffering.

9. Conclusion

The Buddhist-enactivist conception of the self explored here provides, I argue,

a middle path between substantialism and reductionism, between treating the
self as either an independent entity or a mere fiction. The fundamental
problem for substantialism is change: positing a fundamentally unchanging
substratum of our identity in the face of incessant change ultimately alienates
the self from experience and the world. Nothing in our experience—neither
body, nor mind, nor world—has the kind of permanence and stability
attributed to the substantial self. One might take the substantial self as an
explanatory posit, but it remains unclear whether this posit is necessary or
even whether it could do any real work.
On the other hand, the fundamental problem for reductionism is the
centrality of subjectivity, of the first-person perspective. According to the
Buddhist-enactivist view I have sketched, a living sentient being is not a mere
aggregate or bundle of components, and cannot fully be understood from a
purely external, third-person perspective. The living organism displays the
interiority of its own immanent purposiveness and its needful and precarious
relations to its (enacted) milieu. The stream of experience is inherently
reflexive, given to itself in pre-reflective self-awareness (svasaṃvedana) and
through the recursive structure of time-consciousness. The embodied being is

                                                                                                                                              
This sense of self or minimal self is illusion-like in the sense that sentient beings with a sense of self take
themselves to be enduring, bounded, substantial selves when they are not. Dreyfus, Krueger, and I agree
that there are no substantial selves. However, Dreyfus seems to reserve the term ‘self’ for the substantial
self. On the other hand, Krueger and I allow for a dependently originated, empty self. The mistake involved
in the sense of self, then, is twofold: first, one mistakes the empty self for a substantial self; second, one
mistakes the sense of self for the most basic level of subjectivity when it in fact emerges from the egoless
reflexivity of consciousness. 
 ENACTING THE SELF: BUDDHIST AND ENACTIVIST APPROACHES TO THE EMERGENCE OF THE SELF

pre-reflectively aware of itself in and through its active, striving body

(Thompson 2007). On my view—and here I am in basic agreement with both
Krueger and Dreyfus as articulated in this volume—the minimal self
(ahaṃkāra) emerges from the more basic inherent reflexivity of
consciousness. A more robust self is constructed through the self-referential
resources of language and narrative (Zahavi 2005). In each of these ways (and
others) the phenomena of subjectivity resist reduction. The common themes
here are recursivity, self-organization, and self-reference. The key to
understanding (or beginning to understand) self-making, I suggest, is to see
how dynamic processes enact themselves through self-organizing, self-
appropriating activity—biologically, experientially, and socially. For, if the
Buddhists and the enactivists are right, we are this activity.

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 10
Radical Self-Awareness*
GALEN STRAWSON

I. Experience

I want to consider the claim that the subject cannot in the present moment of
awareness take itself as it is in the present moment of awareness as the object
of its awareness. In the first two sections I'll set out some assumptions.
First, I'll assume that materialism is true. By ‘materialism’, though, I
mean real or realistic materialism, that is, materialism that is wholly realist
about the experiential-qualitative character or what-it's-likeness of our
conscious mental goings on—I'll call this ‘experience’—and accordingly
takes it to be wholly physical. When real materialists say that experience—
colour-experience, pain-experience—is wholly physical, they're not saying
that it's somehow less than we know it to be in having it; that wouldn't be real
materialism, realistic materialism, because it would involve the denial of
something that obviously exists. Rather, they're saying that the physical must
be something more than it's ordinarily supposed to be—given that it's
ordinarily supposed to be something entirely non-experiential—precisely
because experience (what-it's-likeness considered specifically as such) is itself
wholly physical.
Experience is necessarily experience-for—experience for someone or
something. I intend this only in the sense in which it's necessarily true, and
without commitment to any particular account of the metaphysical nature of
the someone-or-something. To claim that experience is necessarily
experience-for, necessarily experience-for-someone-or-something, is to claim
that it's necessarily experience on the part of a subject of experience. Again I
intend this only in the sense in which it's a necessary truth, and certainly
without any commitment to the idea that subjects of experience are persisting
things. Some say one can't infer the existence of a subject of experience from
the existence of experience, only the existence of subjectivity, but I
understand the notion of the subject in a maximally ontologically non-
committal way—in such a way that the presence of subjectivity is already
                                                            
*
 §§IV–VII of this paper develop ideas in Strawson 1999: 498–502; see also Strawson 2009: 176–81. When
I cite a work I give the date of first publication, or occasionally the date of composition, while the page
reference is to the edition listed in the bibliography. 
GALEN STRAWSON

sufficient for the presence of a subject, so that ‘there is subjectivity, but there
isn't a subject’ can't possibly be true.1
Consider pain, a regrettably familiar case of experience. It is, essentially,
a feeling, and a feeling is just that, a feeling, that is, a feel-ing, a being-felt;
and a feel-ing or being-felt can't possibly exist without there being a feel-er.
Again I'm only interested in the sense in which this is a necessary truth. The
noun ‘feeler’ doesn't import any metaphysical commitment additional to the
noun ‘feeling’. It simply draws one's attention to the full import of ‘feeling’.
The sense in which it's necessarily true that there's a feeling and hence a feeler
of pain if there is pain, is the sense in which it's necessarily true that there's a
subject of experience if there is experience and, hence, subjectivity. These
truths are available prior to any particular metaphysics of object or property or
substance or accident or process or event or state. (Descartes is very clear
about this in his Second Meditation.)
Some like to think that there can be subjectivity or experience without a
subject. That's why it's important to bring out the full import of the notion of
subjectivity or experience by stressing the fundamental sense in which it can't
exist without a subject. But there's a no less important point in the other
direction. If all you need to know, to know that there is a subject, is that there
is subjectivity or experience, then you can't build more into the notion of a
subject than you can know to exist if subjectivity or experience exists. I think,
in fact, that the object/property distinction is metaphysically superficial—that
there is no ‘real distinction’ between (a) the being of an object, considered at a
given time, and (b) the being of that object's propertiedness, that is, its whole
actual concrete qualitative being at that time, that is, everything in which its
being the particular way it is at that time consists. But that is a difficult issue
for another time.2

2. The Thin Subject

I propose to take the unchallengeable, ontologically non-committal notion of
the subject of experience in a minimal or ‘thin’ way. By ‘subject’, then, I don't
mean the whole organism (the whole human being, in our own case). I mean
the subject considered specifically as something ‘inner’, something mental,
the ‘self’, if you like, the inner ‘locus’ of consciousness considered just as
such.
One way to think of this inner subject or self is as some complex
persisting neural structure or process.3 Another still more minimal way to
think of it is this. Consider the neural activity that is the existence of your
                                                            
1
 See further Strawson 2009: 274, 414. 
2
 See Strawson 2008d, and references there to Descartes, Nietzsche, Ramsey, and others. 
3
 Or else, perhaps, as a subject in Dainton's sense, ‘a collection of experiential powers’, a subject-
constituting ‘C-system’ (Dainton 2008: 252). 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

current experience right now. Imagine that this neural activity somehow exists
on its own—nothing else exists. In this case a subject of experience exists. It
must exist, because experience exists. This last claim is not just the
epistemological claim that we can know that a subject exists because we know
that experience exists. It's the metaphysical claim that whatever constitutes the
existence of your experience must already suffice to constitute the existence
of a subject of experience. Otherwise it couldn't suffice to constitute the
existence of your experience, which it does by hypothesis.
The conception of the subject as a persisting neural structure or process
is probably the most common materialist conception of the inner subject, but I
prefer the more minimal ‘thin’ conception of the subject. According to the
thin conception, the presence of experience is not only sufficient for the
existence of the subject but also necessary. No experience, no subject of
experience. There's a new subject of experience every time there's a break in
experience. There's no subject of experience when one is dreamlessly asleep.
We already have it as a necessary truth that [existence of experience →
existence of subject of experience]. Now we add the converse [existence of
subject of experience → existence of experience].
This is the thin subject. According to the present proposal, this isn't just a
way of thinking of the subject, a way of isolating an aspect of the subject,
where the subject proper must be supposed to be the whole human being, or a
persisting neural structure, or some such. Rather, when we consider the
subject as defined by the thin conception of the subject we have to do with
something that is, whatever its metaphysical category, at least as good or solid
a candidate for qualifying as an entity, a thing, an object (a substance, if you
like) as the whole human being, or a persisting brain structure.
This is not to say that reality contains anything that actually makes the
grade as a thing or object or substance. The Buddhist doctrine of ‘dependent
origination’ suggests that nothing does. An alternative view is that only one
thing does—the universe. On this view, Parmenides and a number of leading
present-day cosmologists are right. There's really only one A-Grade thing or
object or substance: the universe. (Nietzsche and Spinoza agree that nothing
smaller will do.)
That's one important view. The present claim is neutral on this issue. It's
simply that the claim thin subjects are as good, as candidates for thinghood, as
anything else. In fact I think they're better candidates than a persisting brain
structure, or any ordinary physical object, and indeed any supposed
fundamental particle.4 I'm stressing the point to counter the thought that thin
subjects are somehow not real things, ontologically worse off than persisting
brain-structures, for example. This view isn't sustainable, I think, when
metaphysics gets serious and stops spending its time trying to square ordinary
language and ordinary thought categories with reality.
                                                            
4
 I support this claim in Strawson 2009: 294–320, 379–88. 
GALEN STRAWSON

Having said that, I should add that most of the claims I'm going to make
will apply to the persisting-brain-structure subject as well as to the thin
subject. The difference between these two conceptions of the inner subject
isn't really at issue when it comes to my main present purpose, which is to
consider the old claim that the subject can't in the present moment of
awareness take itself as it is in the present moment of awareness as the object
of its awareness. The thin subject is my favourite candidate for the title ‘self’,
if we're going to talk of selves at all, but this issue too—the issue
between those who agree with me about this and those who feel that any
candidate for the title ‘self’ must be something more enduring—may be put
aside for the purposes of this paper.
I'm going to use various numbers and letters to set things out, and
apologize to those who don't like this sort of thing. I hope that my approach to
the issues I discuss may contrast helpfully with some of the Indian approaches
considered in this book precisely because of my ignorance of the Indian
approaches.

3. Present-Moment Self-Awareness
Some claim that the subject can no more take itself as the object of its
awareness than the eye can see itself, or, putting aside the word ‘taking’, that

(i) the subject can no more be the object of its awareness than the eye can
see itself.

Some make the more restricted claim that the subject cannot in the present
moment of awareness take itself as it is in the present moment of awareness as
the object of its awareness, or, putting aside ‘taking’ again,

(ii) the subject in the present moment of awareness cannot be the object
of its awareness in the present moment of awareness,

being, in Ryle's memorable phrase, forever and ‘systematically elusive’ to

itself (1949: 186).
(i) and (ii) express an ancient view. I think it's mistaken in both forms. A
quick if unimportant point against (i) is that subjects that persist for
appreciable periods of time can have themselves as object of awareness, in the
fullest sense, when they remember themselves experiencing something
yesterday, or a moment ago. Against that, it may be said that it's part of the
meaning of the word ‘aware’, used to denote a state of conscious experience,
that ‘awareness of x’ can refer only to apprehension of x as it is in the present
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

moment, modulo whatever time lapse is integral to the mode of awareness in

question (visual, auditory, inner self-awareness).
So be it. I'm going to concentrate on (ii), the case of present-moment
awareness, and argue that there are two distinct ways in which

[1] the subject of awareness can be aware of itself as it is in the present

moment of awareness.5

First, less controversially, and in line with Phenomenological orthodoxy, I'll

argue that the subject can be present-moment aware of itself in a non-
thetic way, where to be aware of something x in a non-thetic way is to be
aware of x although one isn't specifically attending to x. Secondly, less
familiarly, I'll argue that subjects of experience can also (if exceptionally) be
present-moment-aware of themselves in athetic or attentive way.6 I take this
second claim to be a more direct challenge to the ancient view, which seems
to rely on the idea that the reason why the subject can never truly grasp itself
as it is in the present moment of awareness is that it must in so doing take
(have) itself as a thetic object of thought in some way that means that the
thing that it is taking (that it has) as object can't really be the thing that is
doing the taking, that is, itself as it is in the present moment of awareness.
I'm going to use ‘present-moment’ rather than ‘immediate’, at least for
now, because ‘immediate’ also carries the non-temporal sense ‘not mediated’.
Temporal immediacy may imply non-mediatedness, but I want to leave the
issue open.
I'll begin by considering a popular source of support for the non-thetic
case which licenses a much stronger claim than [1]. On this view

[2] the subject of awareness is always aware of itself as it is in the

present moment of awareness

whenever it's aware in any way at all.7 We can rephrase this as

[2] Present-Moment Self-Awareness is Universal

and rephrase its weaker sibling as

[1] Present-Moment Self-awareness is Possible.

                                                            
5
 I use ‘awareness’, ‘experience’, and ‘consciousness’ interchangeably. 
6
 I use ‘thetic’ in the Sartrean way to mean simply ‘in the focus of attention’, rather than in the Husserlian
way, insofar as the latter implies belief. 
7
 The thin notion of the subject makes the words ‘whenever it's aware in any way at all’ redundant; but the
thin notion is of course at odds with the standard dispositional use of ‘subject of awareness’, which allows
that a subject of awareness (whole human being, persisting brain structure, whatever) can exist in a state of
dreamless sleep. 
GALEN STRAWSON

Taking ‘SA’ to be short for ‘present-moment self-awareness’, we can call [2]

the Universal SA thesis, ‘USA’ for short, and we can call [1] the possible SA
thesis, ‘PSA’ for short.
According to [2], it isn't possible for a subject to be aware of anything
without being present-moment-aware of itself. This is true of every subject of
awareness, however lowly. If sea snails have any sort of awareness, then
they're (necessarily) aware of themselves in the present moment of awareness.
I take [2] to be endorsed by many in the Phenomenological tradition. Husserl,
for example, writes that ‘to be a subject is to be in the mode of being aware of
oneself’ (Husserl 1921–8: 151; see also Zahavi 2006, as well as this vol, pp.
58–60 ).
As it stands, the ancient view rejects both [1] and [2], both PSA and
USA, in both their non-thetic and thetic versions.8 I'm going to start by putting
the case for non-thetic USA and thetic PSA, beginning with the former. Since
non-thetic USA entails non-thetic PSA, only thetic USA will be
unsupported—as it should be.
It may be objected that it's best to stop now, because it's obvious that
USA and PSA can't be true, simply because the neuronal processes that
constitute awareness (at least in our own case) take time: there's an inevitable
time lag that rules out all present-moment self-awareness. I'll leave this
objection until later. It may turn out that rejecting USA and PSA for this
reason is like holding that we never experience pain as it is in the present
moment, even if the two cases seem at first disanalogous.

4. The AOI Thesis (All Awareness Comports Awareness

of Itself)
Why should anyone assert [2], that is, USA? I'm going to assume the truth of
the following two general principles:

[P1] awareness is (necessarily) a property of a subject of awareness,

which has already been argued for (and is in any case evident, given that it is
legitimate to talk of properties at all), and

[P2] awareness of a property of x is ipso facto awareness of x.9

[P1] and [P2] entail

                                                            
8
 ‘As it stands’: as far as I know the ancient view isn't really concerned with the non-thetic versions. 
9
 ‘For purposes of argument’: I take it that [P1] and [P2] say something true, even if there is in the final
metaphysical analysis no fundamental (categorial) ontological division corresponding to the distinction
between object and property. 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

[3] any awareness, A1, of any awareness, A2, entails awareness of the
subject of A2

and we can get [2] = USA from [3] if we add

[4] all awareness involves awareness of awareness

or rather (the key premiss)

[5] all awareness involves awareness of that very awareness

that is,

[5] all awareness involves awareness of itself.

[5] is in fact the only defensible version of [4]—as Aristotle pointed out—
given the threat of an infinite regress of awarenesses of awarenesses that [4]
poses as it stands.10 I'll call [5] the AOI thesis, ‘AOI’ for ‘awareness of itself’,
‘AOI’ for short.
The claim is, then, that AOI plus the two principles [P1] and [P2] entails
USA. More briefly: AOI and [3] entail USA. The argument isn't formally
valid as it stands, but the idea is clear.
It may be allowed that [5] all awareness involves awareness of itself, but
doubted that

[6] all awareness is or involves present-moment awareness of itself

on the grounds that there is always a time lag, or an episode of what Ryle calls
‘swift retrospective heed’ (1949: 153). But it seems that this is not possible, if
[5] is true at all, because the last moment in any episode of awareness couldn't
in this case involve awareness of itself (all streams of awareness would have
to last for ever).

The substantive premiss is AOI. The question is, why believe AOI?
Why—to strengthen it slightly—believe

[7] all awareness essentially involves awareness of that very awareness,

or again, more heavily,

                                                            
10
 See Aristotle De Anima 3.2. 425b12–17. Compare Reid: ‘I cannot imagine there is anything more in
perceiving that I perceive a star than in perceiving a star simply; otherwise there might be perceptions of
perceptions in infinitum’ (1748: 317). For an excellent recent discussion of these questions in the context of
Indian philosophy, see e.g. Mackenzie 2007. Note that [4] makes no explicit reference to the present
moment. 
GALEN STRAWSON

[8] all awareness essentially, constitutively, and intrinsically involves

awareness of that very awareness

(‘intrinsically’ and ‘constitutively’ aim to block the possibility, arguably left

open by ‘involves’, that the awareness A1 of the awareness A2 might be
something ontologically separate from A2), or more lightly, to the same
effect,

[9] all awareness is at least in part awareness of that very awareness,

or, to rephrase [8],

[10] all awareness comports awareness of that very awareness,

or, reintroducing the subject of awareness,

[11] all awareness on the part of any subject comports awareness, on

the part of that same subject, of that very awareness

or again, reintroducing multiply redundant explicit reference to the present

moment,

[12] all awareness on the part of any subject at any moment comports
awareness, at that moment, on the part of that same subject, of that
very awareness at that very moment

or, shortening [10] to what I hereby designate as the canonical version of AOI,

[13] all awareness comports awareness of itself?11

Good question, about which there is a lot to say. I think AOI is initially
difficult, but compelling on reflection. It's endorsed by many,
including Descartes, Arnauld, Locke, Brentano, Husserl, Sartre, and most
thinkers in the Phenomenological tradition.12 All of them insist that the
awareness of awareness that is held to be partly constitutive of all awareness
mustn't be thought of as involving some ‘higher-order’ mental apprehension,
A1, say, bearing on an ontically distinct, separate, ‘lower-order’ mental
apprehension, A2 (for this triggers an infinite regress). The relevant awareness
of awareness is, rather, an intrinsic feature of any episode of awareness

                                                            
11
 One can rewrite [13] as [13a] all awareness comports self-awareness—so long as one is clear that the
occurrence of ‘self-’ in ‘self-awareness’ is merely reflexive, so that [13a] means exactly the same as [13],
and doesn't imply any awareness of something called a self. 
12
 See, e.g. the quotations from Sartre in Zahavi, this volume, p. 56. 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

considered independently of any other, given which it is correct to say that

[13] = AOI is true.13

One might say that [13] = AOI can be re-expressed by talking of

[14] the self-awareness of awareness

but [14] is paradoxical, at least initially, in a way that [13] isn't, because it
seems clear that awareness is, necessarily, a property of a subject of awareness
(as [13] still allows, given the word ‘comport’), and can't properly—or indeed
possibly—be said to be a property of awareness itself. That said, I think that
[14] is an acceptable way of putting things. First, it's an acceptable shorthand
for [11]: all awareness on the part of any subject comports awareness, on the
part of that same subject, of that very awareness. Secondly, and more strongly,
the fact that all awareness is, necessarily, awareness on the part of asubject of
awareness—the fact that reference to a subject must enter into any fully
articulated description of what is going on when there is awareness—does not
in any way undercut the truth of [14], according to which it is a constitutive
feature of the phenomenon of awareness itself that it comports awareness of
itself. Thirdly (a much stronger and much more difficult point), I think that
there is a metaphysically fundamental conception of the subject (by which I
mean the thin subject) given which

[15] the subject of awareness (that which wholly constitutes the

existence of the subject of awareness) isn't ontically distinct from the
awareness of which it is the subject

or in other words

[16] the subject of awareness is identical with its awareness.

I'll call [16] the Subject of Awareness/Awareness Identity thesis or S = A

thesis, ‘S = A’ for short.14 It's endorsed, interestingly, by Descartes, Leibniz,
Kant, and Nietzsche, among others, in the Western tradition,15 and if one
                                                            
13
 Among Descartes's endorsements of AOI are the following: ‘we cannot have any thought of which we
are not aware at the very moment when it is in us’ (1641: 2.171) and ‘the initial thought by means of which
we become aware of something does not differ from the second thought by means of which we become
aware that we were aware of it, any more than this second thought differs from the third thought by means
of which we become aware that we were aware that we were aware’ (1641: 2.382). 
14
 I argue for S = A in Strawson 2003b, revised in Strawson 2009: 345–9, 405–19. It entails the ‘thin’
conception of the subject, while making an even stronger claim about the relation between the subject and
its experience. 
15
 In his famous letter to Herz, Kant writes that ‘the thinking or the existence of the thought and the
existence of my own self are one and the same’ (1772: 75). Although Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza often
write as if the subject is ontically distinct from its states of experience or awareness, they're all committed
to the view that the concrete being of a substance (considered at any given time) is not ontically distinct
GALEN STRAWSON

accepts it, then [14], the further proposed version of AOI, can be understood
to be fully equivalent to [2] = USA. That is,

[[AOI & S = A] → USA].

If S = A is too strong for you, you may be able to accept the weaker claim that

[[AOI & [P1] & [P2]] → USA].

If you think [P1] & [P2] are trivially true, you can shorten this to

[AOI → USA].

All I've done, in moving from [5] to [13] ± [14], is re-express AOI in a
number of different ways, but one might also say that all I've done is re-
express USA in a number of different ways. (The AOI thesis is focused on the
nature of awareness, whereas the USA thesis is focused on the nature of the
self or subject, but they are of course closely connected.)
Arnauld puts AOI well when he writes that ‘thought or perception is
essentially reflective on itself, or, as it is said more aptly in Latin, est sui
conscia’, is conscious of itself.16 In endorsing the AOI thesis, as he does here,
he also endorses USA, given that he follows Descartes in accepting the S = A
thesis.
Ryle also puts it well, although with disparaging intent, when he speaks
of the idea that consciousness is ‘self-intimating’ in some constitutive way, or
‘self-luminous’, or ‘phosphorescent’ (1949: 158–9; see also 162–3, 178).
Frankfurt is also helpful, although parts of this passage are potentially
misleading:

what would it be like to be conscious of something without being aware of this

consciousness? It would mean having an experience with no awareness
whatever of its occurrence. This would be, precisely, a case of unconscious
experience. It appears, then, that being conscious is identical with self-
consciousness. Consciousness is self-consciousness. The claim that waking
consciousness is self-consciousness does not mean that consciousness is
invariably dual in the sense that every instance of it involves both a primary
awareness and another instance of consciousness which is somehow distinct and
separable from the first and which has the first as its object. That would threaten
an intolerably infinite proliferation of instances of consciousness. Rather, the
self-consciousness in question is a sort of immanent reflexivity by virtue of
which every instance of being conscious grasps not only that of which it is an

                                                                                                                                              
from the concrete being of its attributes at that time (whatever modes of the attributes are currently
instantiated). 
16
 1683: 71; he uses ‘thought or perception’ to cover all conscious mental goings on. 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

awareness but also the awareness of it. It is like a source of light which, in
addition to illuminating whatever other things fall within its scope, renders itself
visible as well (Frankfurt 1987: 162).17

The claims that are most likely to mislead in Frankfurt's passage are.

[a] consciousness is self-consciousness.

and the immediately preceding

[b] being conscious is identical with self-consciousness,

but [a] doesn't I think say more than [13], the AOI thesis that all
awareness comports awareness of itself, and [b], which may presumably be
adjusted to (or at least entails) being conscious is identical with being self-
conscious, may be understood to be the same as to [2], USA, the key thesis
that the subject of awareness is always present-moment-aware of itself. The—
in my opinion correct—suggestion is (once again) that USA falls out of the
AOI thesis as a necessary consequence of it, given principles [P1] and [P2] on
pp. 280–1 above. If one also accepts [16], the S = A thesis, the ultimate
identity of the subject and its awareness, then [a] and [b] come to the same
thing.

5. Ground of the AOI Thesis

There's a lot to say about the metaphysical grounding of AOI. I take the
central metaphysical question to be the following. Given that AOI is true—
given that all awareness (necessarily) comports awareness of itself—why is
this so? There seem to be two main options.

[O1] AOI is true because it's a necessary consequence of the intrinsic

nature of awareness; and this intrinsic nature can none the less be specified
independently of AOI in such a way that we can see why AOI is true.

[O2] The fact that AOI is true is constitutive of the intrinsic nature of
awareness in such a way that that intrinsic nature can't be specified
independently of the fact that AOI is true.

Locke endorses the second view, when he writes that ‘thinking consists in
being conscious that one thinks’.18 Arnauld's position in the quoted passage is
                                                            
17
 On the claim that consciousness is self-consciousness, compare again the quotations from Sartre in
Zahavi, this vol. p. 56. Among Indian philosophers, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Śaṃkara, and others regularly
use the trope of the light that illuminates itself. See e.g. Dreyfus and Ram-Prasad, this vol., pp. 120, 234. 
18
 1689: 2.1.19; he uses ‘thinking’ in the broad Cartesian sense to cover all experiential goings on. 
GALEN STRAWSON

I think compatible with [O1], although it doesn't exclude [O2]. Descartes's

position (see note 13) seems at first compatible with [O1], but the fact that the
necessity of AOI is for him grounded in the identity of the awareness with the
awareness of the awareness makes this less clear.
This is a question for another time. My present aim is simply to lay out
the way in which the non-thetic version of PSA, that is,

[1] the subject can be aware of itself as it is in the present moment of

awareness

taken in its strong universal form, that is, as USA that

[2] the subject is always aware of itself as it is in the present moment of

awareness

is seen to follow from a substantive thesis, the AOI thesis, which I've put
through a series of formulations, beginning with

[4] all awareness involves awareness of awareness,

passing through

[11] all awareness on the part of any subject at any moment, comports
awareness, at that moment, on the part of that same subject, of that very
awareness at that very moment,

and ending with

[13] all awareness comports awareness of itself.

The move made here, from the claim that the subject is necessarily aware of
its awareness to the claim that it is necessarily aware of itself, is guaranteed
given [P1] and [P2] (sc. [3]). AOI itself may still need defence, and even
when its truth is granted questions about its fundamental metaphysics will
remain. But these are matters for another occasion.

6. Non-Thetic Present-Moment Self-Awareness

Does the plausibility of USA depend essentially on AOI? I'm not sure, and I'm
now going to consider some other ways of expressing non-thetic present-
moment awareness of self. According to Louis Sass,

The most fundamental sense of selfhood involves the experience of self not as
an object of awareness but, in some crucial respects, as an unseen point of origin
for action, experience, and thought…. What William James called…the ‘central
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

nucleus of the Self’ is not, in fact, experienced as an entity in the focus of our
awareness, but, rather, as a kind of medium of awareness, source of activity, or
general directedness towards the world. (Sass 1998: 562)

Bernard Lonergan remarks that

Objects are present by being attended to, but subjects are present [to themselves]
as subjects, not by being attended to, but by attending. As the parade of objects
marches by, spectators do not have to slip into the parade to be present to
themselves. (Lonergan 1967: 226)

In Samuel Alexander's words:

In knowing the object I know myself, not in the sense that I contemplate myself,
for I do not do so, but in the sense that I live through this experience of myself.
(Alexander 1924: 1.xiv)

Arthur Deikman makes the same point: ‘we know the internal observer not by
observing it but by being it…knowing by being that which is known
is…different from perceptual knowledge’ (1996: 355).19 This is knowledge
‘by acquaintance’. There's a narrow, philosophically popular, independent-
justification-stressing conception of knowledge that makes it hard for some to
see this is really knowledge, but the claim doesn't really need defence. Rather
the reverse: this particular case of knowledge, self-knowledge in non-thetic
self-awareness, shows the inadequacy of the narrow conception of knowledge.
The general point is backed up, most formidably, by the fact that knowledge
of this kind must lie behind all knowledge of the narrower justification-
involving sort, as a condition of its possibility. This is because it's a necessary
truth that all justification of knowledge claims is relative to something already
taken as given.
Certainly the eye can't see itself (unless there is a mirror). The knife can't
cut itself (unless it is very flexible), and the fingertip can't touch itself. The
idea that the subject of experience can't have itself as it is in the present
moment as the object of its thought—the idea that ‘my today's self’, in Ryle's
words, ‘perpetually slips out of any hold of it that I try to take’ (1949: 187)—
has many metaphorical expressions. Laycock says that it is part of ‘perennial
Buddhist wisdom’ (1998: 142), and so it is, considered as a truth about the
limitations of a certain particular sort of thetic, object-posing self-
apprehension. But it is, so taken, fully compatible with the claim that there's
another non-thetic form of occurrent self-apprehension in which the subject

                                                            
19
 Plainly ‘knowing by being that which is known’, or rather, perhaps, knowing (oneself) by being that
which is knowing, does not require knowing everything there is to know about that which is known. On a
standard materialist view, one may grant that that which is known, in this sort of self-presence of mind, has
non-experiential being whose nature is not then known at all. 
GALEN STRAWSON

can be directly aware of itself in the present moment, for example in the way
just indicated by Lonergan, Sass, Alexander and Deikman. Dignāga and
Dharmakīrti also hold that a cognition cognizes itself, and is in the present
terms non-thetically aware of itself, although they don't in this context
distinguish explicitly between thetic and non-thetic awareness.20
Does it follow, from the fact that this form of occurrent present-moment
self-awareness is non-thetic, that it isn't explicit in any way? Is it some sort
of implicit awareness? No: there's a key sense in which the implicit/explicit
distinction lacks application when ‘awareness’ is used to refer to occurrent
experience, as here. ‘Awareness’ also has a dispositional use, as when we say
of someone who is dreamlessly asleep that she's aware of your intentions, and
this makes it seem natural enough to contrast implicit awareness with explicit
awareness, just as we contrast implicit with explicit understanding, and
implicit with explicit belief. The implicit/explicit distinction applies naturally
enough in the dispositional realm, as when we say of a dreamless sleeper that
she explicitly believes or understands or is aware that p, given that she has
actually consciously entertained and assented to the thought that p at some
time, or that she implicitly believes or understands or is aware that q, given
(say) that she would assent to q but hasn't ever actually consciously thought or
realized that q. The fact remains that there's no such thing as implicit
occurrent awareness, because ‘awareness’ is currently defined (p. 247) as
something that involves what-it's-likeness, which ‘implicit’ rules out.21 Non-
thetic occurrent awareness can't be said to be implicit occurrent awareness,
then: it's simply awareness of content that isn't in the focus of attention, or
rather, more simply, in attention.22 We can also call it background awareness,
perhaps, for background awareness isn't ‘implicit’ awareness either, any more
than dim or peripheral awareness is.
Another way to put the point, perhaps, is to say that all occurrent
awareness is ipso facto and eo ipsoexplicit awareness just in being, indeed,
awareness, occurrent awareness, genuinely given in awareness, part of the
actual content of experience that is experienced by the subject. This is,
admittedly, a non-standard use of ‘explicit’, inasmuch as it allows that explicit
awareness can be very dim, but one can use the word ‘express’ to do most of
the work usually done by ‘explicit’, and the basic distinction is in any case
clear: it's the undeniably real, if soft-bordered, distinction between express,

                                                            
20
 See e.g. Dreyfus, this vol, p. 120. On the terms of the thin conception of the subject and the S = A thesis,
then, Dignāga and Dharmakīrti can also be said to agree that the subject can be non-thetically aware of
itself. 
21
 This is not to say that one couldn't give sense to a notion of implicit awareness. 
22
 ‘In attention’ is often better than ‘in the focus of attention’, because the notion of focus seems to contain
the foreground/background distinction, and to exclude the possibility that there may be nothing more to
one's experience, when one is attending, than what is in attention. 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

foreground, attentive, thetic awareness, on the one hand, and more or less dim,
peripheral, non-attentive, background, non-thetic awareness on the other.23
The distinction can be refined. There's a sense in which self-awareness of
the sort described by Sass, Lonergan, and Deikman can be said to be in the
foreground even though it isn't thetic. Such self-awareness is, or can be, a
centrally structuring part of experience, in such a way that it's rightly
classified as a foreground aspect of experience, even though there's also a
respect in which it normally passes unnoticed, being entirely non-thetic. In the
penultimate paragraph I suggested that we can equate ‘non-thetic’ with
‘background’, but I'm now inclined to overrule this by introducing a wider
notion of foreground and claiming that

experiential elements may be constitutive of the nature of the foreground

while not being thetic.

At this point we have five distinct expressions, and the terminology is

threatening to go out of control. But the idea should be discernible to a
sympathetic eye. On the present terms [i] all awareness is indeed explicit in
the weak sense, since this now simply means is that it is genuine awareness,
genuinely given in awareness. [ii] Some explicit awareness is background,
and not at all thetic or express. [iii] Some explicit awareness is foreground,
but still not thetic or express. [iv] Some foreground awareness is in addition
thetic or express.
These matters need careful treatment (a careful terminology), and I won't
say much more here, except to note a parallel with the case of the qualitative
character of the sensation of blue when one looks at the sky. There's a clear
respect in which the qualitative character of one's sensation of blue is in the
foreground of experience—it floods one's experience—as one looks at the
blue sky. But it is at the same time wholly ‘diaphanous’, in the sense that one
sees ‘through’ it, as it were, in seeing the blue sky. It is to that extent wholly
non-thetic, not in the (cognitive) focus of attention in any way, considered
specifically as a sensation.24 This being so, I'm now tempted to split ‘express’
from ‘thetic’, just as I previously split ‘foreground’ from ‘thetic’, and to say
that the awareness of the sensation of blue is express but not thetic. I'll return
to this idea on p. 294 below; I think these distinctions capture real differences
although they need careful further work. Experience is an extraordinarily
complex part of reality, and this is one dimension of its complexity.
                                                            
23
 One can even talk of unconscious occurrent awareness when considering things like blindsight; see, e.g.
Rosenthal 2005. Note that although ‘peripheral awareness’ has a good use in describing visual experience,
and perhaps experience in other sensory modalities, the spatial metaphor is potentially misleading when
giving a general characterization of elements of awareness that are out of (the focus of) attention. 
24
 The use of ‘diaphanous’ to characterize sensation is not the same as Moore's famous use to characterize
‘bare’ consciousness (1901: 450). See e.g. Vam Cleve (2005).The place to start, when considering these
questions, is with Reid 1785: 193–6 (§2.16); see also Montague 2009: 501–2. 
GALEN STRAWSON

7. Thetic Present-Moment Self-Awareness.

The form of present-moment self-awareness described by Sass and others is
plainly non-thetic. This means that it isn't in conflict with the ancient eye
objection, if the eye objection can be expressed as the claim that the subject of
experience can't take itself as it is in the present moment of experience as the
thetic object of its attention. As already remarked, I think that present-moment
(no time lag) self-awareness can also be thetic, so that the eye objection is
false even in that formulation, and I will now try to say why.
—This is hopelessly vague. Plus you haven't answered the ‘systematic
elusiveness’ objection. You may think I'm now thinking a puzzling thought,
or I'm looking down on India, or just Here I am, in an attempt to apprehend
yourself as mental self or subject or thinker in the present moment, but in
entertaining these contents you necessarily fail to apprehend the thing that is
doing the apprehending—the entertainer of the content, the thinker of the
thought, that is, yourself considered as the mental subject at that moment.
Ryle is right. Any mental performance ‘can be the concern of a higher-order
performance’—one can think about any thought that one has—but it ‘cannot
be the concern of itself’ (1949: 188–9). When one thinks an I-thought, this
performance ‘is not dealt with in the operation which it itself is. Even if the
person is, for special speculative purposes, momentarily concentrating on the
Problem of the Self, he has failed and knows that he has failed to catch more
than the flying coat-tails of that which he was pursuing. His quarry was the
hunter’ (1949: 187). William James, whom you favour, quotes Comte's
statement of the same point, and agrees with him that ‘no subjective state,
whilst present, is its own object; its object is always something else’ (1890:
1.190).
It's arguable, though, that to think this very thought is puzzling, or I'm
now thinking a puzzling thought, is precisely to engage in a performance that
is concerned with itself; in which case a certain kind of seemingly
immediate self-presence of mind is possible even in an intentional, designedly
self-reflexive, and wholly cognitive act—a point quite independent of
considerations of the sort adduced by Lonergan, Sass, Alexander, Deikman
and many others. On this view, it's only when one tries to apprehend expressly
that one has succeeded that one triggers the regressive step. Nor is it clear that
hunters can't catch the quarry when the quarry is themselves. A detective with
partial amnesia, sitting in her chair and reasoning hard, may identify herself as
the person who committed the crime she is investigating. Wandering in the
dark, I may get increasingly precise readings regarding the location of my
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

quarry from a Global Positioning System, program my noiseless grabber robot

to move to the correct spot, press the Grab button—and get grabbed.25
It may be said that concentration on cognitively articulated thoughts such
as I'm now thinking a puzzling thought or Here I am can't deliver what is
required, or provide a compelling practical route to appreciation of the point
that it's possible to have express awareness of oneself apprehended
specifically as the mental subject of experience in the present moment of
experience. I agree. The best route to this point is much more direct. It doesn't
involve any such discursively articulated representations, although it does
require being in some sort of meditative condition. Then it's simply a matter
of coming to awareness of oneself as a mental presence (or perhaps simply as:
mental presence) in a certain sort of alert, but essentially unpointed, global
way. The case is not like the eye that can't see itself, or the fingertip that can't
touch itself. These old images are weak. A mind is rather more than an eye or
a finger. If Ryle had perhaps spent a little more time on disciplined,
unprejudiced mental self-examination, or had tried meditation, even if only
briefly, and in an entirely amateur and unsupervised, Senior Common Room
sort of way, he might have found that it's really not very difficult—although
it's certainly not easy—for the subject of experience to be aware in the present
moment of itself-in-the-present-moment. It's a matter of first focusing on the
given fact of consciousness and then letting go in a certain way. As far as the
level of difficulty is concerned, it's like maintaining one's balance on a parallel
bar or a wire in a let-go manner that is relatively, but not extremely, hard to
attain. One can easily lose one's balance—one can fall out of the state in
question—but one can also keep it, and improve with practice.26
The attainment of such self-awareness, for brief periods in the
unpractised (and the incompetent, such as myself), seems to involve a state
that has no particular content beyond the content that it has in so far as it's
correctly described as awareness or consciousness of the awareness or
consciousness that it itself is, awareness that includes in itself awareness that
it is awareness of the awareness that it itself is, but does so without involving
anything remotely propositional (contrary to what the word ‘that’ suggests to
many) or thetic in the narrow and apparently necessarily distance-involving,
object-of-attention-posing way. The route to it that I have in mind involves a
preparatory focusing on the fact of consciousness that stops the ordinary flow
of content; it isn't just a matter of meditative awareness of breathing, say, or of
whatever is passing in the mind, although these practices may on occasion
precede and facilitate the same result. It may be a route to, or form of, what
people have in mind when they speak of ‘pure consciousness experience’:
consciousness that is consciousness of the consciousness that it itself is, and

                                                            
25
 There is also the case of Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and the Heffalump (Milne 1928). 
26
 One such method is Patricia Carrington's Clinically Standardized Meditation (1998). 
GALEN STRAWSON

that includes consciousness that it is consciousness of the consciousness that it

itself is.27
Something like this is, if only fleetingly, an early and rather routine step
in certain meditative practices, and there's a pretty robust consensus about its
reality, precise character, and (relative) ease of attainment, as there is also
about the more often stressed point that it involves an experience of
‘selflessness’, an experience it's natural to express by saying that it seems that
there is just subjectivity, rather than a subject, although there is still—
necessarily—a subject in my metaphysically non-committal sense of the term,
since all experience is necessarily experience-for, and although a subject in
my sense of the term is still experienced. One mustn't be misled by the fact
that this thetic present-moment self-awareness involves a sense of
selflessness, or by the fact that I've characterized it with the impersonal mass
terms ‘awareness’ and ‘consciousness’, into thinking that it isn't after all a
genuine case of the phenomenon whose reality I'm trying to
establish: awareness on the part of the subject of experience of itself in the
present moment of experience.
The proposal, then, is that

[17] the subject of awareness can be fully thetically aware of itself as it is

in the present moment of awareness,

which earns the laborious title

[17] the Possible Thetic Present-Moment Self-Awareness Thesis

—the Thetic PSA thesis, for short. It claims that thetic SA (present-moment
self-awareness) is possible. It incorporates the idea that the neural time lag
objection mentioned at the end of §2 doesn't apply. In Yogācāra, it classifies
as a case of ‘objectless cognition’, a phenomenon whose possibility was much
debated in that tradition.

8. Doubts about Thetic Present-Moment Self-Awareness

Can the claim that present-moment self-awareness (SA) can be fully thetic be
maintained? It certainly seems right to say that the awareness of oneself can in
this case be fully express, no less express than any awareness of anything is
when one's awareness of it is thetic, even though there is in this case no sort of
posing or positing or positioning of oneself for inspection of the sort that may
seem to be built into the meaning of the word ‘thetic’. I think, in fact, that it
can also be said to be thetic, taking the core meaning of ‘thetic’ to be just:

                                                            
27
 See, for example, Forman 1998, Shear 1998. See also Parfit 1998. It may be what Karme Chagme is
describing in the passage quoted by Dreyfus (this vol., pp. 121–2). 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

genuinely in the field of attention, genuinely in attention, and rejecting the

idea that attention requires articulation or construction of such a kind that the
subject is bound to present to itself in such a posed or set-up way given which
one can't be said to be aware of it as it is at that moment. On this point, I think
Ryle and a host of others are simply wrong. Their model of awareness is too
rigid, insofar as it pushes the subject—the ‘now-subject’, one might say—into
being necessarily cut off from its (attempted) object—itself. It hasn't been
shown that there's an insuperable difficulty in the matter of present-moment or
immediate (im-mediate) self-awareness—in apprehending the subject ‘live’.
This is certainly something special, but it seems that I can engage in it with no
flying coat-tails time lag. The eye can't see itself, but the I isn't much like an
eye.
If we take ‘thetic’ to entail some kind of structured operation of positing
or positioning of an object of attention, a focusing that typically requires some
sort of effortful maintenance, some sort of intellectual upkeep, then we may
do best to distinguish ‘thetic’ from ‘express’, and fall back to ‘express’,
leaving ‘thetic’ to denote an essentially time-lagged and distancing,
cognitively articulated operation. On this understanding of ‘thetic’, present-
moment self-awareness of the sort I have in mind can still be said to be
foreground and express, but can't strictly speaking be said to be thetic. My
inclination, however, is to resist this move, on the ground that an adequate and
therefore broad understanding ofcognition needs to allow for—
acknowledge—the genuinely cognitive nature of this present-moment self-
awareness. We need perhaps to try to wean our understanding of ‘thetic’ away
from too narrow a conception of what cognition is, to allow that one can
achieve a fully thetic state of awareness by a certain sort of letting go, and so
assert the Thetic PSA thesis outright. I'm prepared to retreat to

[18] the subject of awareness can be fully expressly aware of itself as it is

in the present moment of awareness

that is,

[18] the Possible Express Present-Moment Self-Awareness Thesis

(the Express PSA thesis, for short) if the word ‘thetic’ is judged to be
irretrievably out of bounds. In the rest of this paper, though, I'm going to
continue to defend the Thetic PSA thesis: I'm going to take the word ‘thetic’
to be principally tied simply to the idea of attention, attentiveness, full
attention, and attempt to cultivate a sense of how attention (and cognition) can
have forms that don't involve anything like discursively structured operations
of positing or positioning things as objects of attention.
GALEN STRAWSON

9. Defence of Thetic Present-Moment Self-Awareness

The fundamental objection to the Thetic PSA thesis, perhaps, is that thetic
awareness is necessarily amediated form of awareness, where this means not
only that there is necessarily a time lag, but also that one inevitably has to
do with a representation of the phenomenon one is aware of which is not the
phenomenon itself. Here we come up against some very general questions
about knowledge, and I'll limit myself to a few remarks.
‘Cognitive' means ‘of or pertaining to…knowing’. It follows
immediately that the standard distinction between cognition and emotion is
illegitimate, because our emotions, however fallible, are one of our main
sources of knowledge of how things are. Putting that aside, the claim is that
we need, when thinking about cognition, to acknowledge the reality as
knowledge or cognition—knowledge or cognition in the fullest sense—of
knowledge by direct acquaintance. This is how I know the nature of the pain
that I feel now. Such knowledge by direct acquaintance is, one might say,
perfect. (Knowledge of a priori truths can be no less perfect.) There's a crucial
aspect of reality, one's experience (= the experiential-qualitative character or
what-it's-likeness of one's experiences) that one knows as it is in itself, simply
because ‘the having is the knowing’, and in such a way that there is no time
lag.
—Suppose I accept this as an example of knowledge or cognition by
direct acquaintance. It isn't going to be enough to illustrate what's supposed to
be going on in Thetic SA. There are at least two objections.
[1] The notion of direct acquaintance seems clear enough when we
consider sensory or feeling (sense/feeling) aspects of experience, but the
direct acquaintance is standardly non-thetic in these cases, however express it
is—however much it is in the overall experiential foreground. So it provides
no model for thetic direct acquaintance.
[2] You've given us a proposed case of direct acquaintance
for sense/feeling aspects of experience, but Thetic SA—if it exists at all—is
presumably some kind of non-sense/feeling orcognitive direct acquaintance
with oneself as subject; in which case, presumably, it has no experiential-
qualitative feeling aspect at all. Even if you could come up with a model of
thetic direct acquaintance in the sense/feeling case (which you haven't yet
done), it wouldn't help with the case you're aiming at, which is a case of the
non-sense/feeling direct acquaintance of the subject with itself.
First: I completely reject the equation of experiential-qualitative
phenomena with sense/feeling phenomena. There is, in addition to
sense/feeling phenomenology, sense/feeling experience, cognitive
phenomenology, cognitive experience. Our experience has cognitive
experiential-qualitative character in every sense in which it has sense/feeling
experiential-qualitative character (for the purposes of argument I take
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

‘sense/feeling’ and ‘cognitive’, broadly understood as above, to be mutually

exclusive, and jointly exhaustive of the field of experience). I've argued for
this in other places and will take it for granted here.28 There is, furthermore, a
fundamental sense in which allexperience as currently defined, that is, all
what-it's-likeness, is a matter of direct acquaintance, be it sense/feeling or
cognitive. So far, then, there's no reason to think that the idea of cognitive-
experiential direct acquaintance is any more problematic than the idea of
sense/feeling direct acquaintance. Some philosophers may find the idea of
direct acquaintance with cognitive what-it's-likeness alarming, but it's backed
by a point parallel to the point about knowledge made on p. 288: if there is
any kind of cognitive experience at all, this kind of direct acquaintance must
exist as a condition of its possibility.29
Second: I agree that the direct present-moment acquaintance involved in
sense/feeling experience is standardly non-thetic. Sense/feeling experience is
a huge part of our overall experience, for example, when we perceive things,
but we very rarely focus on it.30 So it's unclear how we can work a passage
from the understanding of direct acquaintance given to us by non-thetic
sense/feeling cases to Thetic SA, a subject's direct thetic present-moment
acquaintance with itself, assuming that this involves some essentially non-
sense/feeling and hence cognitive element, some cognitive apprehension of
self.
Let me try to take an intermediate step. My having-is-the-knowing direct
acquaintance with my headache is usually non-thetic—even when I'm
painfully aware of it, so that it's in the overall experiential foreground. I find,
though, that I can bring it about that I have it as thetic object of attention
and also have having-is-the-knowing direct acquaintance with it. At the least,
I can bring the pain sensation to (thetic) attention, and then, having done so,
fall into experiencing it in the direct way in which I ordinarily take myself to
experience objects in the world. And because what I am experiencing in this
case is in fact my own sensation, this way of experiencing it can be having-is-
the-knowing direct acquaintance.
This ‘falling’ is a relatively delicate operation, relative to ordinary
everyday full-on thetic attention. For in everyday full-on thetic attention, I
take it, the fact that the object of attention is being taken as object of attention
is part of what is given in the overall character of the experience. But it is—I
propose—precisely this aspect of everyday full-on thetic attention that can
lapse, leaving the pain in full attention without there being any awareness of
oneself as taking it as object of attention. When this happens, the fact that the
object of attention is being taken as object of attention is no longer part of
what is given in the overall character of the experience. Only the pain is. This
                                                            
28
 See, e.g. Strawson 1994: 5–13, Strawson forthcoming 2011. 
29
 There is I think a connection here with Searle's notion of the Background. See Searle 1983. 
30
 This is the truth in the ‘transparency thesis’, which is often inflated into a larger and false thesis. 
GALEN STRAWSON

can also occur more naturally, without being engineered for purposes of
philosophical research, as it is here. It can happen in cases when one passes
from thetic concentration to a state of absorption, artistic or otherwise.
One can do the same with the sensation of blue that one has when one
looks at the blue sky. One can take the sensation of blue as thetic object of
attention even as one continues to look at the sky (Reid and Moore make
related but different points),31 When one does this in a standard way, as a
philosophical exercise of the sort prescribed by Reid, one's awareness of the
sensation of blue will comport some sort of awareness of the fact that the
sensation of blue is being taken as object of attention. But one can also go
beyond this, I propose, into a state of direct thetic having-is-the-knowing
acquaintance, a state of holding the sensation of blue in full attention, in
which one's experience ceases to have, as any part of its content, the structure
of subject-attending-to-something.32
If this is right, we now have a model of thetic direct acquaintance in the
sense/feeling cases, and it's not clear why we should suppose that some huge,
further gulf must appear when we turn from such cases—pain, or blue-
experience—to the case of the subject. In fact, if the S = A thesis is correct,
as I think it is, then direct thetic acquaintance with pain or blue-experience is
already direct thetic acquaintance with the subject. Relative to such cases, the
special, alert, unpointed way of coming to awareness of oneself as a mental
presence (or as mental presence) described in §7 is special only in that it
doesn't involve any particular content like pain or blue-experience, and is
therefore a candidate for the title ‘pure consciousness experience’.33
—Even if you've now secured a case of thetic present-moment direct
acquaintance, you've done it only for the sense/feeling case, and you still need
to show how there can be non-sense/feeling present-moment direct
acquaintance.
Well, again it's not clear that we need to build a bridge from the proposed
cases of direct and thetic present-moment acquaintance with sense/feeling
content in order to understand, or at least acknowledge the possibility or
                                                            
31
 It's not easy: it requires practice, as Reid pointed out: ‘it is indeed difficult, at first, to disjoin things in
our attention which have always been conjoined, and to make that an object of reflection which never was
before, but some pains and practice will overcome this difficulty in those who have got into the habit of
reflecting on the operations of their own minds’ (1785: 196). See also James: when we consider perception,
we see ‘how inveterate is our habit of not attending to sensations as subjective facts, but of simply using
them as stepping-stones to pass over to the recognition of the realities whose presence they reveal’ (1890:
1.231). Some philosophers of perception mistakenly think that it is a mark of philosophical sophistication to
hold that this can't be done. 
32
 This isn't possible in Reid's model of attention to sensation, in fact, in which attention can only be paid to
sensation that is—however fractionally—already past. See Yaffe 2009. 
33
 It's still pretty special. Hume gives a correct (if widely misunderstood) report of the results of ordinary
reflective mental self-examination when he denies that he ever has any such experience: ‘when I enter most
intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other…. I never can
catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception’
(1739/40: 252). 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

reality of, Thetic SA: direct, present-moment acquaintance of the subject with
itself. Thetic SA must presumably be a non-sense/feeling matter, hence a
cognitive matter, in some sense of cognitive—at least in part. But we already
have it that there is such a thing as cognitive experience (it pervades every
moment of our lives), and there is, as observed, a fundamental sense in which
it's essentially constitutive of something's being experiential content at all that
its subject or haver is in a relation of direct acquaintance with it—whether it
be sense/feeling content or cognitive-experiential content.34
I've claimed that Thetic SA must be an essentially non-sense/feeling
matter, at least in part, but I'm not sure quite what this amounts to, if only
because currently standard classifications of what one may call
the experiential modalities are extremely crude. Many assume that all
experiential modalities are sensory or sense/feeling modalities: they exclude
the idea that there are cognitive experiential modalities from the start. And
even those who admit that there is a distinctively cognitive experiential
modality may wish to exclude the idea that there may be a non-
propositional or non-discursive experiential modality which is nonetheless a
non-sense/feeling experiential modality, and indeed a genuinely cognitive
experiential modality. They're also likely to assume that the division between
sense/feeling content and cognitive experiential content is absolute, as I have
done for purposes of argument (without committing myself to the view that
either can occur wholly without the other).
These are difficult issues, about which I feel unsure. I do, however, feel
sure about the Thetic PSA thesis, the possibility of having direct thetic (in the
wider sense) awareness of oneself as subject in the present moment of
awareness. And I'm strongly inclined to think that this is, precisely, a non-
propositional, non-discursive form of awareness, which is nonetheless
properly said to be a matter of cognition.

10. Can the Subject Know Itself as it is in Itself?

In the last section I shifted from talking about present-moment awareness to
talking about present-moment direct acquaintance, without explicitly
acknowledging that this is a substantive move. As it stands, the Thetic PSA
thesis doesn't, in speaking of awareness, make any claim about knowledge of
the nature of the subject as it is in itself, still less about complete knowledge
of the nature of the subject as it is in itself, of a sort that may seem built into
the idea of direct acquaintance. And this, so far, may seem agreeable, because
the picture of the subject as some kind of active principle lying behind all its
experience, in such a way that one can't know its essential nature, even if one
                                                            
34
 Remember that cognitive-experiential content is wholly internalistically understood. It's what you have
wholly in common with your philosophical Twins, whether they're on Twin Earth, or in a vat, or have just
popped miraculously into existence. See Strawson 2008c: 294–5, forthcoming 2011. 
GALEN STRAWSON

can be present-moment-aware of it as existing, remains beguiling. And given

that it's beguiling, it seems good that it should be, so far, compatible with the
Thetic PSA thesis.
I think, though, that the Thetic PSA thesis must accept its
responsibilities; it must square up and take on the burden of implying that the
subject have at least some acquaintance with itself as it is in itself. Supporters
of the Thetic PSA thesis like myself should, in other words, accept that any
argument that as-it-is-in-itself self-awareness is impossible is an argument
against the Thetic PSA thesis.
The first thing to do, perhaps, is to ask why the picture of the subject as
some kind of active principle lying behind all its experience is beguiling. Part
of the explanation is that the metaphysics of subject and predicate forces itself
on us almost irresistibly, demanding that we distinguish between the subject
of awareness and its various states of awareness in a way that I believe we
must ultimately reject (quite independently of any commitment to the S = A
thesis), and opening the way to the idea that we are at best aware of its states
and so not of itself as it is in itself.35 More respectably, our sceptical instincts
are active, as they should always be, and they too invite us to acknowledge
that we could perhaps be present-moment-aware of something and yet not
know anything of its essential nature. They then suggest that absolutely all
awareness of anything, other than the what-it's-likeness of experience,
is mediated by a representation of that thing. So if the subject is aware of
anything other than the what-it's-likeness of experience, then even if that other
thing is itself, itself considered specifically as subject, still there is an affecting
relation, albeit a self-affecting relation. The Kantian conclusion is then
triggered: ‘nothing which emerges from any affecting relation can count as
knowledge or awareness of the affecting thing as it is in itself’.36
Kant famously takes the subject itself to be, for this reason, unknowable
by itself as it is in itself, to be knowable only as it appears to itself (if only
because it can only be encountered in the spatiotemporal—in particular
temporal—form of sensibility).37 The present suggestion is precisely that this
isn't so—that it's possible to be aware of the subject of awareness in an
immediate, but nonetheless express and indeed thetic (in-full-attention) way,
that is parallel, at least in respect of immediacy, to the immediate (im-
mediate) awareness we have of experiential what-it's-likeness. Usually,
representation/mediation gets in the way, leaving us with ‘mere appearance’,
but not in this case. On this view, Fichte's principal objection to Kant, which
he expressed by saying that the subject can apprehend itself as subject in
                                                            
35
 On this, and the dubiousness of the ‘so’, see e.g. Strawson 2008d. 
36
 P. F. Strawson (1966: 238), summarizing Kant. See also Langton 1998. 
37
 Consider, for example, his remark that ‘I do not know myself through being conscious of myself as
experiencing/thinking, but only when I am conscious of the intuition of myself as determined with respect
to the function of experiencing/thinking’ (1781/7: B406). 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

‘intellectual intuition’, is quite correct, even if he has quite different reasons

for it.38
Here, then, I boost the Thetic PSA thesis into being committed to the
thesis that present-moment self-awareness is, and must, involve some sort of
awareness of the nature of the subject as it is in itself, a step I'm happy to take
for other Cartesian-Kantian-Jamesian reasons (the S = A thesis, the ultimate
identity of subject and experience, experiencer and experiencing). Note, as a
final reflection, that phrases like ‘the subject's awareness of itself considered
specifically as subject’ can be taken in a stronger and a weaker sense. The
stronger sense takes ‘as subject’ to mean that the subject's awareness of itself
involves its bringing itself under the concept subject. The weaker sense
requires only that what the subject is in fact concerned with is itself in so far
as it is a subject, and allows that it may not, in being so concerned, be
deploying anything recognizable as a concept of itself as subject. Here I have
the weaker sense in mind. It allows for the idea, which seems necessary, that
although all ordinary adult human beings possess the concept subject, it
simply lapses—is not deployed in any way—in immediate thetic self-
awareness. It also allows that children may be capable of immediate thetic
self-awareness prior to possessing anything that can be dignified by the name
‘concept’.39

11. Conclusion
I've proposed that the mental subject can be immediately relationally aware of
itself, both in the non-thetic, everyday Sass-Lonergan-Deikman way, and also,
exceptionally, in the express, thetic ‘pure consciousness experience’ way.40
Evidence? Each must acquire it for himself or herself in foro interno. This
doesn't mean it isn't empirical: it's wholly empirical. It does mean that it isn't
publicly checkable, and it will always be possible for someone to object that
the experience of truly present self-awareness is an illusion produced—say—
by Rylean flashes of ‘swift retrospective heed’ (1949: 153). I think, though,
that this notion of heed has the flying coat-tails error built into it, and there is
another larger mistake that can I think be decisively blocked.
Suppose that it's in the nature of all naturally evolved forms of
experience/consciousness that they are, in the usual course of things,
                                                            
38
 Fichte 1794–1802. The notion of ‘intellectual intuition’ is precisely an attempt to characterize a kind of
knowledge-of-x-involving relation with x that does not involve being affected by x in a way that inevitably
limits one to knowledge of an appearance of x. Note that if one goes into a state of Thetic SA, one's
awareness is bound to be genuinely awareness of oneself, the subject that one is—by the nature of the case. 
39
 Is one present-moment aware of oneself as being oneself? One might think ‘Yes, but in some non-
conceptual way’, or, ‘No, inasmuch as nothing that really qualifies as a sense of individuality remains.’ 
40
 According to Fasching, Indian soteriological traditions, such as Advaita Vedānta and Sāṃkhya-Yoga,
equate this with realization of the ‘self' —'which is nothing other than becoming aware of experiential
presence (consciousness) as such’ (Fasching, this vol., p. 207). 
GALEN STRAWSON

incessantly and seemingly constitutively in the service of the perceptual and

agentive survival needs of organisms. It doesn't follow that this is essential to
the nature of consciousness, that experience/consciousness must be defined in
terms of adaptive function or perceptual content, even in part. The notion of
pure consciousness experience is incompatible with any such conception of
the nature of experience, but it's certainly not in tension with naturalism,
properly understood, or with anything in the theory of evolution by natural
selection.41
This is another topic that needs separate discussion. Here I simply want
to note that even if experience isn't a primordial property of the universe,42
and even if it came on the scene relatively late, there's no good reason—in fact
it doesn't even make sense—to think that it first came on the scene because it
had survival value. Natural selection needs something to work on, and can
only work on what it finds. Experience/consciousness had to exist before it
could be exploited and shaped, just as non-experiential matter did. The task of
giving an evolutionary explanation of the existence of consciousness is
exactly like the task of giving an evolutionary explanation of the existence of
matter: there is no such task. Natural selection moulds the phenomena of
experience it finds in nature into highly specific adaptive forms in exactly the
same general way as the way in which it moulds the phenomena of non-
experiential matter into highly specific adaptive forms.43 The evolution by
natural selection of various very finely developed and specialized forms of
experience (visual, olfactory, etc.) is no more surprising than the evolution by
natural selection of various finely developed and specialized types of bodily
organization.44 Even if (even though) evolved forms of experience have come
to be what they are because they have certain kinds of content that give them
survival value, kinds of content which are (therefore) essentially other than
whatever content is involved in pure consciousness experience, it doesn't
follow that pure consciousness experience is some sort of illusion. On the
contrary: evolution gives us an explanation of how anything other than pure
consciousness ever came to exist. Pure consciousness experience, as we can
know it, may become possible only after millions of years of EEE-practical
forms of consciousness, but it may for all that be uniquely revelatory of the
fundamental nature of experience.45

                                                            
41
 Naturalism, by which I mean real naturalism, acknowledges experience or consciousness as the most
certainly known natural fact. 
42
 I think it must be; see, e.g. Strawson 2006a. 
43
 It may be that everything physical is experiential in some way, but I'll put this point aside. 
44
 To speak of such forms of consciousness is not to reject the possibility that functional equivalents of,
e.g., visual and auditory experience could exist in the complete absence of consciousness. 
45
 My thanks to Mark Siderits for his very helpful comments. 
 RADICAL SELF-AWARENESS

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Dover).
Kant, I. (1772/1967), Letter to Marcus Herz, February 21, 1772, in Kant:
Philosophical Correspondence 1759–99, ed. and trans. Arnulf Zweig
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
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Langton, R. (1998), Kant's Humility (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Laycock, S. (1998), ‘Consciousness It/Self ’, Journal of Consciousness
Studies 5: 141–52.
Locke, J. (1689–1700/1975), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
ed. P. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
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MacKenzie, M. (2007), ‘The Illumination of Consciousness: Approaches to
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Sturge, ed. Rüdiger Bittner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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——  (1785/2002), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, ed. D. Brookes
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——  (1943/1969), L'être et le néant (Being and Nothingness), trans. H.
Barnes. (London: Methuen).
——  (1948/1967), ‘Consciousness of Self and Knowledge of Self’, in N.
Lawrence and D. O'Connor (eds.),Readings in Existential
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——  (1948), ‘Conscience de soi et connaissance de soi,’ Bulletin de la
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 11
Buddhas as Zombies: A Buddhist
Reduction of Subjectivity
MARK SIDERITS

1. Introduction

In the phenomenological tradition, the two questions,

Does subjectivity require a self or subject?

and,

Is consciousness intrinsically reflexive?

have come to be linked.1 As other contributors to this volume have pointed

out, one part of the Buddhist tradition likewise saw a connection here. Certain
Buddhist philosophers held both that the first question required a negative
answer, and that this in turn required them to answer the second question in
the affirmative. A non-egological account of consciousness is vulnerable to
the objection that the phenomenal character of conscious states requires a
conscious subject: it is incoherent to claim that there is what-it-is-likeness and
yet no such thing as that-for-which-it-is-like. The Buddhist philosophers in
question embraced the reflexivity thesis as part of a strategy that was meant to
answer this objection. The idea, roughly, was that a non-dual account of
cognition, one on which awareness of content is really just a cognition's

                                                            
1
 I have greatly benefitted from discussions with Georges Dreyfus, Galen Strawson, Evan Thompson, and
Dan Zahavi on the topics discussed here. 
MARK SIDERITS

cognizing itself, would preserve phenomenality while not endangering the

core Buddhist claim that the self is no more than a reification.
Not all Buddhist philosophers accepted this strategy, however. The
reflexivity thesis was accepted only by the Yogācāra-Sautrāntika school;2 it
was rejected by all the Abhidharma schools,3 as well as by Prāsaṅgika
Madhyamaka and those Svātantrika Mādhyamikas who followed the
Sautrāntika line.4 What I should like to do is explore what this Buddhist
alternative might look like, and what it might tell us about our options when
we theorize consciousness. I shall begin with a brief sketch of the history of
Buddhist non-egological accounts of consciousness. The point of this sketch is
to isolate and clarify what may be an interesting Buddhist alternative to the
Buddhist position described elsewhere in this volume. This alternative
Buddhist position contains the following three elements:

1. Subjectivity (= phenomenality) requires a subject or self.

2. There is no self.
3. Consciousness is irreflexive.

The upshot, given certain plausible assumptions concerning the nature of

cognition, is that consciousness cannot be ultimately real. In the remainder of
the essay following the historical sketch, we shall see what resources the
Buddhist philosophical tradition might contain for defending such an
outlandish claim.5

                                                            
2
 Yao (2005: 6–41) claims that the Mahāsāṃghikas also accepted the thesis that all cognitions are reflexive
or self-cognizing. The evidence he cites is equivocal, however. The context in which this claim is attributed
to them is a discussion of the knowledge of a liberated person. The question is whether such a person
knows the nature of all ultimately real entities at one time. While other Abhidharma schools claim that such
knowledge occurs serially, the Mahāsāṃghikas say there can be a single cognition that cognizes
all dharmas or ultimate reals. Since this cognition is itself a dharma, this means it is included in the set of
all dharmas whose nature is cognized. What is unclear is whether the cognition involved here is perceptual
in the strong sense of what Nyāya calls non-conceptual perception. Only if it is would we have in this claim
an anticipation of Dignāga's view. 
3
 By ‘Abhidharma’ I mean what is also sometimes called Śrāvakayāna, the teachings of the so-called 18
schools of ‘Hearers’. Representative works of Abhidharma thought include the Theravāda
compendium Visuddhimagga by Buddhaghosa, and Abhidharmakośabhāṣya by the Sautrāntika philosopher
Vasubandhu. (Strictly speaking Sautrāntika is not an Abhidharma school, but its project is sufficiently like
that of the 18 schools that it may usefully be put under that rubric here.) 
4
 For Bhāviveka's rejection of reflexivity see Eckel 2008: 288, 437. 
5
 I should say in advance that this outlandish position was not to my knowledge held by any Indian
Buddhist school. I arrive at it through a combination of rational reconstruction and speculation based on
positions actually held by various Indian philosophers. I engage in this exercise because I think there may
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

2. The Buddhist Reductionist Understanding of Non-Self

The Buddha said that suffering arises because of our ignorance about our
identity. We are each trapped on the wheel of saṃsāra because we have a
false view about what the ‘I’ truly is. Thus far his teachings are not unlike
those of other Indian emancipatory projects (see Fasching and Ram-Prasad,
this volume). What sets his apart is the doctrine of non-self (anātman). The
Indian philosophical tradition, both Brahmanical and Buddhist, took this to be
the ultimate rejection of any entity that might serve as referent of the ‘I’, as
owner of the states of the person.6 Of course the Buddha did not deny that
persons experience such things as pleasure and pain. Indeed one of the
Buddha's core teachings is that there is suffering, and it is virtually axiomatic
that suffering is adjectival on a sufferer, or more generally that experience
requires an experiencer. In his teachings, the Buddha follows the common-
sense way of understanding such things when he attributes such states to
persons. This appears to conflict with his teaching of non-self. The tradition
sought to resolve this conflict by claiming that, in such teachings, the Buddha
is merely using the common parlance, that such teachings are merely
‘conventionally true’ and not ‘ultimately true’. It is out of this hermeneutical
device that there emerges the articulation of the non-self doctrine that I call
Buddhist Reductionism.
Buddhist Reductionism is based on the claim that if ‘I’ is a referring
expression then its referent might be one of two things: it might be the self,
defined as that one part of the psycho-physical complex that is its essence, or
it might be the person, the whole that is constituted by the psycho-physical
elements when properly arranged in a causal series. Buddhist Reductionists
claim that there is no self, and that the person is only conventionally, and not
ultimately, real. To say that the person is only conventionally real is to call it a
kind of useful fiction. The idea is that, strictly speaking, there are only
impersonal psycho-physical elements in a causal series, but the cognitive
                                                                                                                                              
be interesting things we can learn when we take seriously the resources provided by the Indian
philosophical tradition. 
6
 Some modern scholars (e.g. Albahari 2006) claim that the Buddha meant to deny only an empirically
accessible self, not the self tout court. While I am skeptical that the Buddha intended to affirm a
transcendent self, or even to leave his teachings open to the interpretation that there is such a thing, this is
not the place to engage in a dispute over ‘what the Buddha really meant’. What is, I think, beyond dispute is
how the Indian philosophical tradition subsequently took the Buddha's teaching of non-self, namely as the
straightforward denial that anything ultimately real might serve as experiencer, controller, and ground of
diachronic personal identity. 
MARK SIDERITS

economies achieved by thinking of such a series as a single thing serve

significant interests. It is important to note that this makes Buddhist
Reductionism importantly different from eliminativism about persons. The
Eliminativist would agree that persons are not ultimately real, but they would
add that persons are useless fictions. Reductionists claim instead that given
what is ultimately real (impersonal psycho-physical elements in complex
causal relations), there is considerable utility for creatures like us in thinking
and acting as if such things do exist. On this analysis, suffering comes from
mistaking this useful fiction for something ultimately real, and thus coming to
see what is strictly speaking just a causal series of psychophysical elements as
that single entity for which events in the series have meaning and value.7
A key move in the construction of this fiction is what is called
appropriation (upādāna), a disposition whereby different parts of a series are
taken as ‘I’ or ‘mine’. Note that this construction is held to be useful up to a
point (namely the point at which, by taking it too seriously, we generate
existential suffering). It follows that constructionist views of the self and of
personal identity, such as the narrative self theory, may be compatible with
Buddhist Reductionism despite the latter's explicit denial of a self. For the
reasons that make it useful (up to a point) to believe that there are persons
might be best served if persons were organized heuristically around a
narrative structure. Seeing one's life as a sort of self-authored narrative might,
for instance, serve the important purpose of helping in the maximization of
overall well-being in a given causal series over time, by rationalizing present
sacrifices as serving longer-term interests. In that case, a Buddhist
Reductionist could claim that the narrative self is conventionally real.
No such self could, however, be ultimately real according to Buddhist
Reductionism. This is because its view is grounded in a thorough-going
mereological reductionism, according to which anything analyzable into a
multiplicity of distinct constituents is not ultimately real. A narrative self must
be so analyzable in order to serve its function. The richer the life, the more
varied must be the ends intrinsic to the self. And on the sort of mereological
reductionism at work here, even an allegedly simple entity turns out to be
partite and thus reducible if it has more than one intrinsic property
(AKBh adAKB VI.4. See Abbreviations at the end of this essay.). So while

                                                            
7
 I discuss the distinction between Reductionism and Eliminativism in more detail in chapter 1 of
Siderits 2003. 
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

belief in a self for whom events in this life have meaning and value may be
useful (up to a point), such a self can at best be a useful fiction.
The point beyond which this fiction ceases to be useful is, of course, the
point at which the well-being promoted by its adoption is outweighed by the
suffering that results from taking it as more than a useful fiction. This
suffering is, paradigmatically, the frustration, alienation, and despair that
come with the realization of one's own mortality. This realization typically
threatens to drain one's life of all significance by revealing the happiness-
seeking project to be unsustainable in the long run: How can the events in my
life have meaning if in the long run that for which they have value will cease
to exist? The Buddhist soteriological project may be seen as at bottom an
attempt to show how to reap the benefits of the useful fiction of the person,
without paying the steep price exacted when we take it literally.8
This gives us an important criterion in assessing proposed accounts of
cognition from a Buddhist perspective. Buddhist philosophers tend to be wary
of anything that might be taken to be a self. Collins once claimed that this
represents no more than a linguistic taboo on words like ‘I’ and ‘self’
(Collins1982: 183). This wariness may instead stem from a genuine concern
that there be nothing that could serve as the basis for suffering-inducing
appropriation. In assessing accounts of cognition, the Buddhist philosopher
will want to know whether the appeal of a given account stems, covertly, from
its appearing to affirm such things as human value and dignity, or the richness
of a fully human life. As other contributors to this volume have pointed out,
there are any number of different sorts of self on offer, with varying degrees
of thinness or thickness.9 It is conceivable that some sort of self is necessary
for an adequate account of human cognition. Perhaps subjectivity does require
a subject, not only conventionally (as the Buddhist Reductionist readily
grants) but ultimately as well. The Buddhist simply cautions that acceptance
of such an entity should be based on compelling evidence, and not just on the
desire that it be possible for our lives to have value and dignity.
                                                            
8
 For more on what it might mean to live in this mode, see Siderits 2006, Goodman 2009. 
9
 For instance, the sort of ‘embodied self’ that is required to explain motor control (discussed by
Thompson, Krueger, and MacKenzie, this volume) is probably too thin to arouse Buddhist suspicions. That
an animate organism must be able to tell its body from the surrounding environment, to locate its movable
parts within that environment, and to predict the results of motion of its body parts, is indisputable. But as
neuroscience uncovers more about the brain mechanisms that support these abilities, it becomes
increasingly clear that they involve no more than the most straightforward of feedback loops, and thus
nothing that could provide much solace to those seeking the basis for a sense of rich narrative depth. It
seems unlikely that sea slugs experience existential suffering. 
MARK SIDERITS

Buddhist philosophers were, of course, familiar with the view that the self
is just of the nature of consciousness (found in the Upaniṣads, and held by
Sāṃkhya, and later by Vedānta—see Fasching, this volume), or that
consciousness is one of the qualities of the self (held by Nyāya). One very
early response is that consciousness cannot be the self since it is impermanent.
Consciousness is here acknowledged as among those psychophysical elements
(skandhas) that make up the person, and as thus itself real. But, it is claimed,
since consciousness arises in dependence on contact between sense faculty
and sensible object, and the senses of vision and smell are distinct, the
consciousness that takes the color of the flower as object must be distinct from
that which takes its smell as object a moment later. The assumption at work
here is that the self is meant to be the ground of diachronic personal identity,
and as such would have to endure as long as the person endures.
A different assumption about the self is the target of another argument
developed later in the Abhidharma tradition. This assumption is that the act-
object model is appropriate for understanding the nature of consciousness.
That this assumption would prove useful in trying to establish the existence of
a self is evident from its role in the Cartesian cogito. In the hands of Nyāya
and Mīmāṃsā philosophers it is deployed by way of the grammatical point
that a construction involving a verb and an occurrence of the accusative case
requires an occurrence of the nominative: the cutting (verb) of the tree
(accusative) requires that there be a cutter (nominative). So consciousness
requires a subject, which is understood to be just the self.
One Abhidharma response to this argument builds on the thesis that all
existents are not just impermanent (as the Buddha claimed) but momentary,
lasting but an instant before perishing and being replaced by others. This
thesis has the interesting consequence that there can be no such thing as the
performance of an action. To speak of someone or something performing an
action is to presuppose that an entity can continue to exist through three
distinct times: when the action is yet to be performed, when the action is being
performed, and when the action has been completed. If all existing things are
momentary, then nothing endures through two times, let alone three. Applied
to the case of consciousness, this not only undermines the argument for the
self as the agent of the action of being conscious. It also subverts the view,
implicit in Sāṃkhya and explicit in Advaita Vedānta, that the self is not a
substance, but just the pure activity of witnessing. As Vasubandhu puts it,
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

consciousness ‘does nothing whatever…it simply arises in conformity with its

object’ (AKBh IX, 472).
To this it is objected that we are conscious not only of the smell of the
flower, but also that the flower we now smell is the same flower that we saw a
moment ago. This common experience of diachronic synthesis is said to
require an enduring conscious subject. To this it is replied that the apparent
awareness of continuity is like the appearance of a circle of fire in the case of
a whirling firebrand. This analogy requires careful unpacking. Part of the
point, of course, is that there is no circle of fire, only a rapid succession of
occurrences of fire at the different points in the arc traveled by the torch. The
example derives additional force from the fact that, on the assumption of
momentariness, there is no continuous fire traveling around the arc, just
distinct occurrences of fire at each point. The wheel we seem to see is actually
a series of successive flames. And on the mereological reductionism that is
central to Abhidarma, a series can at best be a conceptual fiction, something
that is conventionally, but not ultimately, real. For a series is like the chariot
in that any effect we ascribe to it (such as, in the case of the wheel of fire,
appearing to be two meters wide) is to be explained in terms of the effects of
its parts (this flame occurring here, the next occurring there, etc.). Since causal
efficacy is the hallmark of the real, and the wheel lacks autonomous
explanatory power, it cannot be ultimately real. Like the chariot, it is
something we take to be real due to our interests and cognitive limitations.
This reply might seem to miss the real point of the objection. The
opponent might grant that the wheel of fire is a sort of mental construction,
but still deny that the consciousness that takes there to be such a wheel could
be any such thing. Now on the assumption that a given occurrence of
consciousness arises in dependence on sense faculty and object, the
consciousness that is aware of fire at one point is distinct from the
consciousness that is aware of fire at any other point in the arc (since the two
consciousnesses have distinct objects and so distinct causes). So the
Abhidharma view will be that it is a series of successive consciousnesses that
constructs the wheel. But the opponent will object that it is absurd to suppose
a succession of distinct consciousnesses could do any such thing. For on this
view there is nothing that is aware first of fire at this point, then of fire at the
next point. Awareness of continuous succession requires either an enduring
consciousness (the Sāṃkhya and Vedānta view), or an enduring subject as
MARK SIDERITS

owner and synthesizer of distinct consciousness episodes (the view of Nyāya

and Mīmāṃsā).
The Abhidharma response will be that a given cognition can inherit
information from earlier cognitions in the series, with the result that it and its
neighbors can cognize the series of flames as making up a wheel in the
specious present. To see the plausibility of this reply, consider the case of the
motion detector that turns on the yard lights when a stray raccoon passes by.
The processor that performs this feat does so by retaining information from
the immediately preceding scan of the area while performing a new scan.
When the two resulting wave patterns match, they cancel each other out and
no further result follows, save that information from the current scan is stored
in short-term memory. When they do not match, the disparity causes the light
switch to be tripped. Here it is a single enduring processor that performs the
sequence of scans. But one could achieve the same result using a new
processor for each scan. All that matters is that the processor that scans at
tn cause there to be, in the processor that scans at tn+1, a standing wave that
represents the scan input at tn. Comparison of the states at tn and tn+1 does not
require an enduring ‘witness’ of both states. Synthesis is compatible with a
series of ownerless, momentary, but causally connected, consciousnesses.
The Buddhist Reductionist stance on consciousness and the self depends
crucially on mereological reductionism, the view that the composite entities of
our folk ontology are conceptual fictions, conventionally but not ultimately
real.10 To this it is sometimes objected (e.g. Thompson 2007, Mackenzie this
volume) that the ‘linear’ conception of causality at work in mereological
reductionism is inadequate. As Merricks (2002) nicely illustrates,
mereological reduction goes through on the grounds that causation in the
matter at hand is bottom-up and not top-down: the effects that we attribute to
the bicycle are all produced by the suitably arranged parts. It will be said that
while this might be true of artifacts like chariots and bicycles, it is not true of
certain complex dynamic systems such as organisms, which exhibit a kind of
system causality that cannot be captured with a linear, bottom-up model. This
idea, that novel causal powers emerge at higher levels of complexity, has a
long history. And as that history illustrates, caution is required in assessing it.
                                                            
10
 For more on the mereological reductionism of Buddhist Reductionism, see Siderits 2009. It is crucial to
bear in mind that the sort of reduction in play here is ontological, not semantic. The question is not whether
it is possible to give a complete semantic analysis of ordinary ways of talking that is couched in a language
containing no terms for complex entities. The question is whether the world itself contains, independently
of the ways we talk and think, complex entities. 
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

The fact that we can ‘compute the embryo’ (Rosenberg 1997) certainly
suggests that we can predict macro-level properties of the organism from
micro-level knowledge of its causal antecedents. The feedback loops of such
organic processes as immune system functioning are also readily
decomposable, along the lines of such models as audio (mike-amp-speaker)
feedback, and the self-controlling home heating system. Once we prise apart
ontological and semantic reduction, we may come to see that the appearance
of system-level causation often stems from our need to treat the system as one
big thing in order to manage our cognitive economies. It is sometimes claimed
that since RNA is a self-assembling structure, its causal powers cannot be
reduced to those of its constituent molecules. But this consequence does not
follow from the structure's being self-replicating. It would only follow that
RNA has irreducible causal powers if the structure could not have first
appeared through the unprecedented combination of molecular components.
There is ongoing research into the question whether terrestrial processes could
have brought this about. It would be presumptuous to make any claim about
this in advance of definitive research results. But given the past history of
emergentism, it would surely be rash to take our current lack of knowledge
about how it might have happened as evidence that it cannot have happened.11

3. Subjectivity without Subjects?

A new phase in the development of Buddhist Reductionist thinking about

consciousness begins with the Sautrāntika school. While there was
considerable controversy among Abhidharma thinkers concerning the proper
analysis of cognitive processes, the tradition before Sautrāntika was united in
holding to the direct realist view of perception that was most likely the
Buddha's own view (Dhammajoti 2007: 136–44). Sautrāntika rejects that view
in favor of representationalism, on the grounds that there is a time lag between
                                                            
11
 What is most fundamentally at issue in the dispute between the Buddhist Reductionist and those critics
who favor emergentist or non-reductive supervenience approaches is the direction of the constraint arrow
between causation and explanation. Reductionists claim that an acceptable explanation must appeal to
causal laws. Their opponents claim that it is the other way around, that what counts as an acceptable causal
law is constrained by what serves as an adequate explanation. It is possible that this dispute might be
resolved through appeal to Dennett's notion of the intentional stance, but I shall not attempt to do that here.
All of this proceeds on the realist assumption that there is a ready-made world. If the anti-realist arguments
of Madhyamaka are valid, then all bets are off: since causation would itself then be a conceptual
construction, there could be no question as to whether causation is ultimately bottom-up, top-down,
circular, loopy, or none of the above. For discussion of what Madhyamaka anti-realists might have to say
about the conventional status of causation, see Siderits 2010. 
MARK SIDERITS

the contact of sense faculty with sensible object and the occurrence of sensory
cognition. Since the object lasts only a moment, it no longer exists when the
cognition occurs, so it cannot be the object of that cognition. The direct object
of sensory cognition must instead be a mental image or representation. Now it
was open to Sautrāntika to retain the old model of sensory cognition as a
mental act operating on a distinct object, only ‘internalize’ the object by
making it a separate mental state that then serves to represent the external
object with which the perceptual process began. But this was not the path they
ultimately chose. And perhaps with good reason, since a representationalism
of this sort invites an understanding of the mind as Cartesian theater, with
consciousness as spectator viewing the images brought in by the senses.
Instead, in later Sautrāntika we find the claim that awareness of sensory
content occurs through the arising of a cognition that bears the form of the
physical object. The experience of seeing blue is just the occurrence of a
cognition that has blue color as its form. Consequently, a cognition cognizes
itself.
Dignāga is widely held to have first developed this reflexivity claim, but it
seems likely to have originated somewhat earlier, in Sautrāntika.12 Dignāga is
the founder of the Yogācāra-Sautrāntika school of Buddhist epistemology, the
aim of which is to develop a theory of knowledge acceptable to both the
representationalist-realist Sautrāntika and the subjective idealist Yogācāra.
Yogācāra took the logical next step following Sautrāntika's
representationalism, playing Berkeley to their Locke. But Yogācāra also
developed some interesting views about the nature of consciousness
(discussed in greater detail by Dreyfus and by Ganeri, this volume). Of
particular importance here is their claim that consciousness is ultimately non-
dual in nature. This first comes out in their assertion that subjective idealism is
soteriologically effective in the quest for nirvana because the feeling of
interiority that is central to the sense of self depends on contrast with an
external world, so that all sense of self must dissolve once one realizes that
there is no external world. This suggests that Buddhist Reductionists had
begun to worry about the problem of subjectivity—the problem that the
phenomenal character of cognitive states seems to require that there be a
subject for which they have this character. This might then be part of the
motivation behind Dignāga's formulation of the reflexivity claim. Also worth
                                                            
12
 Yao (2005: 97–118) discusses the evidence for the claim of a Sautrāntika origin. 
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

noting is that this defense of Yogācāra subjective idealism involves an explicit

disavowal of the perspectival self argued for by Albahari (this volume). If one
attains the ideal state by dissolving all sense of interiority, then the ideal state
cannot involve the sense that the presentations of consciousness are from a
perspective.13
Dignāga is famous for his claim that consciousness is self-illuminating,
that it illuminates both its object and itself, just as light makes visible not only
the objects in a room but itself as well. He also claims that each instance of
consciousness has two forms, the form of the intentional object and its own
form as cognizer, but that these two forms are ultimately non-distinct, it being
only the demands of conceptuality that lead us to see a difference here. And
he formulates this view in defense of the Yogācāra claim that consciousness is
ultimately devoid of the subject-object dichotomy. Dignāga might then appear
to be responding to the problem of subjectivity. For his reflexivity claim is
treated as an answer to the question how consciousness is cognized, and this
seems to be a way of addressing the perspectival nature of consciousness.
Dignāga's answer to this question—that consciousness cognizes itself in
cognizing its object—looks like it could have been designed to show the
compatibility of Reductionism with that nature. It would nonetheless be
surprising, given that no Brahmanical critic of Buddhist Reductionism raises
the question of subjectivity per se. Their objections continue to be those
discussed above, having to do with the synthetic unities required for
phenomena like experience-memory, cross-modal perception, and the karma-
fruit link.14
Be that as it may, there would seem to be a genuine problem for the
Reductionist here. Reductionism about things of kind K typically involves
showing that our belief that there are Ks is perfectly understandable despite
there being, strictly speaking, no such things, in that this is how things will
naturally appear to us given the facts about the im-K-ish things that do exist,
plus the facts about our interests and cognitive limitations. This may make
perfectly good sense when the Ks are heaps, or chariots, or ships. But when
the K in question is the person, one will naturally ask just who the ‘us’ is to
                                                            
13
 This of course invites the objection that Yogācāra must therefore embrace solipsism. The late Yogācāra
thinker Ratnakīrti agrees, but holds that this is no fault. See Kajiyama 1965. 
14
 That is, Indian realists about the self wanted an enduring subject of experience, and would not rest
content with the ‘pearl self’ of Strawson 1997. The central focus of debate continued to be the Buddhist
Reductionist contention that consciousness is necessarily impermanent or episodic. For an interesting
attempt on the part of an Indian realist to circumvent this objection to the self, see Watson 2006. 
MARK SIDERITS

whom the impersonal entities and events appear. Reductionisms try to demote
their targets to a second-tier ontology of entities that are in some sense
‘subjective’. But when the target is the person, such demotion may seem
problematic, in that it is unclear how there can be such a status in the absence
of a real subject. Shoemaker (1985) may have had something like this
difficulty in mind when, in his review of Parfit's Reasons and Persons, he
claimed that the ontological reduction of persons that Parfit seemed to wish
for would require a reduction of the mental as well, to either the physical or to
events characterized functionally. So whether or not Dignāga had this problem
in mind when he formulated his reflexivity claim, it is still worth inquiring
whether his view offers Buddhist Reductionism any aid on this score.
Might Dignāga's approach succeed in answering the subjectivity
objection? Strawson's (2008) discussion of the relation between experiential
content and (thin) subject sheds some helpful light here. Now Strawson does
call it ‘a necessary truth’ that there is a subject whenever there is subjectivity
(2008: 183). And what Dignāga must give the Buddhist Reductionist is a way
of affirming subjectivity or what-it-is-like-ness that does not require an
experiencing subject. Strawson's thin subject exists only for a moment, and so
would be considered unobjectionable by Abhidharma standards. But we are
supposing Dignāga is concerned that even a fleeting subject of experience can
serve as grounds for existential suffering, and wants to show that phenomenal
content is possible without even this thinnest of subjects. Strawson's claim
must be read with caution however, for this comes in the context of a
sustained argument for the conclusion that the distinction between subject and
content of experience is at best only conceptual, not real. And this sounds very
much like Dignāga's claim that cognition's two forms (the form of the object
and the form of its nature as cognizing) are only conceptually and not
ultimately distinct. It seems then that Strawson's ‘necessary truth’ holds only
conventionally—which for Dignāga means for purposes of discourse, the
ultimate truth being inexpressible. Ultimately, cognition is non-dual, but this
non-duality being inexpressible, it cannot be stated and so cannot be the
content of any sort of true statement.
This identity of subject and content would go some way toward
explaining the much-touted immunity from error through misidentification
allegedly possessed by our awareness of our own conscious states. That we
cannot be wrong in thinking that a given state is our own is sometimes seen as
evidence, not only for the existence of a subject of experience (as Fasching,
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

this volume, interprets it), but also for reflexivity. It could thus serve as
support for the self-illumination view (though Dignāga did not so use it). The
idea is that since subjective states are simply and immediately given as one's
own, it must be the case that in undergoing such a state one is immediately
aware, not only of its content but of its being experienced as well. If, as
Dignāga and Strawson seem to be saying, cognizing and content are only
conceptually and not ontologically distinct, then it follows that cognizing of
content just is cognizing of the cognizing. So it is hardly any wonder that one
cannot go wrong in identifying an experience as belonging to this (thin)
subject. But now the reflexivity claim begins to look a little odd. If the
cognition of cognition is no more than the occurrence of phenomenal content,
in what sense can it be said that some operation is being carried out on that
content by that very content itself? The demand for a subject began with the
claim that what-it-is-like-ness requires that for which it is so like. We are
taking Dignāga to have sought to answer this with his reflexivity claim. One
begins to suspect that the ‘for’ in ‘that for which it is so like’ reflects the
functional role of cognition, not its intrinsic nature: content presents itself to
the system for which it serves a role in action guidance. And of course this
system is a complex series, not something ultimately real.15
In any event, Dignāga's view is not without its philosophical difficulties.
First, Indian philosophers generally accept a principle of irreflexivity, to the
effect that an entity cannot operate on itself. Even the most skilled acrobat, it
is said, cannot stand on their own shoulders. The alleged counter-example of
light, that supposedly illuminates itself while illuminating other things, is
questionable. Strictly speaking what is visible when we say we see a beam of
light is dust motes illuminated by the light, not the light itself.16 Likewise,
mereological reductionism shows how to dispose of such other alleged
counter-examples as the sentence that refers to itself, or the doctor who heals
herself. Proper analysis shows such cases to invariably involve one part of a
larger system operating on another part. It is our belief in real wholes that
leads us to suppose there are genuinely reflexive operations in the world.

                                                            
15
 Perhaps Dignāga would agree that cognition is self-illuminating only in the weak sense that cognitive
content presents itself to the system without the need for any other source of illumination. According to
Williams (1998), certain Tibetan exegetes took Dignāga and Dharmakīrti this way. But this can be confused
with self-reflexivity only if one presupposes a certain sort of internalist model of cognition according to
which one is aware that p only if one is aware that one is aware that p. 
16
 But see Fasching, this volume, for an alternative way of taking the claim that light illuminates itself. 
MARK SIDERITS

Moreover, Dignāga's arguments against the alternative other-illumination

view, that a consciousness is only cognized by a distinct consciousness, are
flawed. He claims that the view leads to an infinite regress: if a given
cognition requires a second occurrence of consciousness to apprehend it, the
second will require a third, etc.17 This is true, but it fails to refute the theory of
other-illumination. The awareness of my awareness of a pot requires a second
occurrence of consciousness, but the occurrence of this second consciousness
does not require a third. Only the cognition of this second consciousness
would require a third, and the opponent holds that there can be awareness
of x without the awareness of the awareness of x. It would be question-
begging to assume that there cannot be cognition of the cognition of the pot
without cognition of that reflective cognition.18
Equally flawed is a second argument against other-illumination: that this
view would have it that awareness of cognition always involves memory of a
prior cognition, but one cannot remember what one has not experienced. This
argument might be telling against the Nyāya version of other-illumination,
which has it that the cognition of a cognition involves a kind of internal
perception of an already-completed cognition; such reflective awareness
might be said to involve a sort of remembering of the immediately preceding
cognition. But it does not pose a problem for the Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā
formulation of the other-illumination theory, according to which the cognition
of the pot is cognized, not by reflection or memory, but through a kind of
abductive inference (an inference to the best explanation). When one cognizes
the pot one comes to be aware of the pot as qualified by cognizedness, and
from this awareness one may abductively infer the occurrence of cognition of
the pot. While it is true that one does not remember what one did not
experience, on this account one is not remembering the cognizing of the pot,
so the conceptual point about memory is irrelevant.
Thompson (this volume) proposes a phenomenological formulation of the
argument from memory. On this version, the evidence for self-illumination
comes not from the general phenomenon of cognition of cognition (something
that can occur immediately after the occurrence of the target cognition) but

                                                            
17
 For a survey of the debate between self-illuminationists and other-illuminationists, see Sinha1958: 199–
221. More recent discussions include Ganeri 1999, and Chapter 2 of Ram-Prasad 2007. 
18
 Perrett 2003: 226f makes a similar point about Sartre's version of the argument. For further discussion,
see Chatterjee 2008. For an analysis of Dharmakīrti's formulation of the infinite regress argument that
reveals it to be equally question-begging, see Kellner (forthcoming). 
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

from what is experienced as memory of an earlier cognition (in which there is

a temporal gap between the target cognition and the memory cognition). The
claim is that such experience-memory involves the remembering, not of the
pot, but of the experience of seeing the pot. And since one cannot remember
what one did not experience, memory of the experience of the pot requires
that, at the time of the experience, one was aware, not only of the pot, but also
of the experiencing of the pot: memory of prior cognition requires that the
original cognition cognized itself.
To this, the response is that memory occurs through connection with the
experienced object, and is thus of the object, not the experience of the object
(BCA IX.24cd). From this awareness of the object in its absence there is the
indirect cognition of the earlier experience of the object, by means of an
abductive inference using the principle that one does not remember what one
did not experience. While it may be true that experience-memory feels like the
re-presentation of something as given in the past, the claim is that here, as
elsewhere, the phenomenal feel of a presentation can be misleading: in
memory it is the object that is given, its having been experienced in the past is
the conclusion of an (automatic) abductive inference. To the objection that
then there would be no difference between perceptual presentation of the pot
and memory presentation of the pot, so that one would not have grounds for
inferring that the pot was previously experienced, it will be replied that the
two presentations differ in degree of acuity, the perceptual being more distinct
or vivid (spaṣṭa).19 The abductive inference in this case is based on the
indistinctness of the memory image. Perhaps it will be objected that one can
make such an inference only if one is aware of this indistinctness, and that this
requires that one be aware of the present cognition of the memory image,
hence that the present cognition be self-illuminating or reflexive. But to so
object is to presuppose that information cannot bring about cognitive
operations unless one is aware of oneself as possessing that information. And
to make this assumption is to beg the question against the other-illumination
theorist.

                                                            
19
 See, e.g., PV 3.10, PV 3.299, TSP ad TS 1120–1. There are good neuroscientific reasons to suppose that
there must be discriminable differences between perceptual representations and representations generated
internally (such as memory images and simulations). On the forward dynamic model of action control, the
agent produces an ‘efference copy’ of the motor command which is then compared with the sensory
consequences of one's action. As such, this forward copy must be perceptually attenuated. This explains
why, e.g. a ticklish person cannot tickle themselves. See Choudhury and Blakemore 2006: 40–1. Perceptual
attenuation might correspond to what the Buddhist authors mean by ‘indistinct’. 
MARK SIDERITS

A similar strategy defeats Dignāga's argument for a cognition's having

two forms. He claims that if a cognition had only a single form, either of itself
or of its intentional object, then the cognition of the pot and the cognition of
the cognition of the pot would be indistinguishable. But this follows only on
the assumption that the form cognized by a cognition must be immanent to
that very cognition–something denied by direct realists such as the Bhāṭṭas.
Finally, Dignāga's attempt to avoid a subject-object dichotomy involves
some dubious metaphysics. He appears to want to say that the dichotomy is
avoided by virtue of the fact that there is but a single entity involved, albeit
one with two forms. But by the tenets of Buddhist Reductionism's
mereological reductionism, an entity with more than one intrinsic property is
just as lacking in ultimate reality as a partite entity. And the two forms
Dignāga attributes to cognition certainly look like intrinsic properties. Of
course Dignāga will claim that cognition's having two distinct forms is no
more than a concession to the demands of conceptuality and does not reflect
its ultimate nature. But then he will run up against the paradox of ineffability:
his claim that the ultimate nature of cognition is inexpressible certainly looks
like an attempt at expressing its ultimate nature. And why suppose that it is
after all cognition that we are talking about, and not some other candidate for
the role of ultimate reality, if the nature of the ultimately real is inexpressible?
So it is not clear that Dignāga has an effective response to the subjectivity
objection to Reductionism that avoids reinstating the subject-object
dichotomy. It would be interesting to see if some other formulation of
Buddhist Reductionism could do a better job of answering the subjectivity
objection.

4. A Buddhist Reduction of Consciousness

Other Buddhist schools hold that one becomes conscious of a cognition only
through a distinct cognition. This is the view of Theravāda, Vaibhāṣika, early
Sautrāntika and Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka. But I know of no systematic
development and defense of the other-illumination view by any Buddhist
philosopher. Now, because all these schools hold that consciousness is
momentary but that a self must endure, they would not see a difficulty if it
turned out that an occurrence of consciousness plays the role of subject in a
particular cognition. But suppose we agreed with Strawson (1997) and the
Yogācārins that anything that may be seen as playing the role of conscious
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

subject is sufficiently self-like to threaten the Reductionist project. This would

be reason to think that this minimal form of subjectivity poses a threat to
Reductionism even when its base ontology is not physicalism but a kind of
dualism. To respond to this challenge, the Buddhist Reductionist would need
to develop a position on the question of how cognition is cognized. I propose
that the best fit would be with the Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā form of other-
illumination theory.
Consciousness is, on this view, irreflexive, just like everything else in the
universe. No more is consciousness aware of itself than a knife cuts itself or a
fingertip touches itself. We can nonetheless be aware not only of a pot, but of
our awareness of a pot. This must be achieved through a distinct cognition.
But the cognition in question is not a case of reflection or inner perception. It
is indirect. This makes it a case of what we would call inference. But for
Indian epistemologists, ‘inference’ refers to a kind of indirect cognition that is
mediated by cognition of a relation of invariable concomitance between the
property to be proved and the inferential mark. Seeing smoke, one infers the
existence of fire on the hill by virtue of one's having seen smoke and fire
together in the kitchen. This makes it a requirement on inference that the
property to be proved be amenable to direct cognition. If consciousness cannot
be perceived, then its occurrence cannot be known through inference. This is
why Bhāṭṭas claim that cognition is cognized through abductive inference
(inference to the best explanation). Seeing that the obese Devadatta does not
eat during the day, one abductively infers that he eats at night, despite the fact
that we never observe co-occurrences of the property of being obese but not
seen to eat, and the property of eating when unobserved. Likewise, they claim,
we can abductively infer the occurrence of cognition from the occurrence of
cognizedness in the object, despite the fact that we never perceive the co-
occurrence of cognizedness and cognition (since we never perceive
cognition).
A major difficulty for this view is that it is not at all easy to explain what
the property of cognizedness is. The Bhāṭṭa claims that we notice this
property in the pot and abductively infer from it the occurrence of a cognition
that has taken the pot as its intentional object. But, the opponent objects,
cognizedness is a relational property, and one does not cognize a relational
property unless one cognizes both relata. One does not cognize Jill's property
of being the same height as Jack unless one also cognizes Jack. So one cannot
cognize cognizedness in the pot without first cognizing the pot and the
MARK SIDERITS

cognition that has it as intentional object. Hence we arrive back at the need to
countenance the direct cognition of cognition.
To this it is replied that the cognizedness in the object is just the property
of the object's being available for speech and action: to say there is
cognizedness in the pot is just to say that the pot can now be referred to and
employed in various ways. To this it is objected (Sinha 1958: 210) that it is
tantamount to denying the existence of cognition. The thought behind this
objection is that if there is no more to cognizedness than the availability of the
object for systems like memory, speech, desire, and action-guidance, then
‘consciousness’ comes to seem like an empty place-holder. And there is, I
think, something to this objection. If all there were to cognizedness was being
such as to be available to a single system, such as action-guidance, there
would be no reason to posit anything like consciousness in order to explain
the phenomena. For this is just what we find in cases of blind-sight: the
subject navigates around obstacles while claiming to see nothing. In such
cases we say that the object directly plays a causal role in the guidance of
action, without consciousness as an intermediary. We do not think the
thermostat is conscious of the temperature of the air in the room: the
thermostat serves as an intermediary between the temperature of the air and
the operation of the heating/cooling system. But why should things be any
different where the object is available to multiple systems? The flow of
information is more complex, but such flow is still along what are, after all, no
more than causal pathways, just more of them. The suggestion is that if
cognizedness is just global availability, then the abductive inference to
consciousness fails to go through.20
A Buddhist Reductionist other-illumination theorist would no doubt want
to resist this consequence of their view, that consciousness becomes a mere
empty place-holder. First there are considerations of orthodoxy. To call
consciousness an empty place-holder is in effect to call it a conceptual fiction.
Yet the Buddha spoke of consciousness as one of the psychophysical elements
(skandhas) to which the person is said to be reducible. So to call
consciousness a conceptual fiction would be to call the Buddha's authority
into question. But there are also considerations stemming from the role of
meditation in Buddhist practice. For meditation looks like a kind of
phenomenological investigation; in meditation one carefully examines the rise
                                                            
20
 For a useful discussion of the term ‘global availability’, see Metzinger (2003: 31). 
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

and fall of mental states, their structure and causal interactions. If

consciousness is no more than an empty place-holder, then it seems there is
nothing for phenomenology to investigate. Yet the practice of meditation is
thought to be efficacious on the Buddhist path to the cessation of suffering. If
the subjective realm is illusory, why should its analytic investigation have any
useful consequences?
Yet I think the Buddhist Reductionist who wants to avoid the difficulties
of Dignāga's view should embrace this consequence of the other-illumination
position. To do so need not amount to abandoning the other-illumination
view. One can instead put the objection just rehearsed to reductionist uses. It
does, after all, appear to us as though we are aware of our own states of
consciousness. This phenomenon is quite real, and requires explaining. How
is it to be explained, given irreflexivity? By way of an abductive inference
from the global availability of objects. Since global availability is just an
aggregation of distinct causal pathways, it will come as no surprise that
consciousness turns out to be a conceptual fiction, a single entity posited in
order to simplify the task of data management. (Hence the abductive inference
is valid, but only conventionally.) Just as it seems to us that there is a chair
when the parts are assembled in a certain way, so it seems to us that there is
the conscious state of seeing a chair in my path to the door when the chair is
made available not only to the action-guidance system (as in blind-sight) but
also to the memory system, the speech system, etc. We can thus understand
why it is that, despite there being no such thing as what-it-is-like-ness, it
would seem to us that there is such a thing. Subjectivity is a useful fiction.21
But is it at all coherent to claim that it seems to us as if there is such a
thing as its seeming to us as if…when in fact there are no seemings? Two
responses are possible. One is that the persistence of an illusion is no proof
that it is not an illusion. One can know perfectly well that the lines in an
illustration of the Ponzo illusion are of equal length, yet one will continue to
see some as longer than others. The sense that there is the perspectival, it
                                                            
21
 For a Buddhist Reductionist, saying that consciousness is a conceptual fiction would be tantamount to
saying there can be unconscious mental functions. The orthodox Buddhist Reductionist view is that all
mental functions are conscious: there can be no caitta without citta. This orthodoxy is the source of the
Yogācāra notion of ālayavijñāna or ‘storehouse consciousness’, as well as the Theravāda notion
of bhavaṅga, the continuum of consciousness. In both cases a seemingly unobservable consciousness is
posited in order to explain continuities in mental functioning. But this orthodoxy was challenged by
Sautrāntikas when they claimed that mental dispositions can be preserved over intervals when there is no
cognition whatever. This was the original form of their ‘seeds’ theory. So there is precedent for a Buddhist
Reductionist to hold a view that entails that mental functions can occur without consciousness. 
MARK SIDERITS

might be said, is just such an illusion. Of course this must count as the mother
of all illusions, since without it there could be no gap between how things
seem and how things are. But it nonetheless makes sense to speak of it as an
illusion, since it leads the system in which it occurs to misrepresent its
environment. There is no what-it-is-like-ness for the thermostat, yet we speak
naturally of our fooling the thermostat into taking the room to be warmer than
it is by holding a candle nearby. So we might say that the psycho-physical
system misrepresents its environment as containing a subject to which things
seem a certain way. One's grasping of this point may include an instance of
just such a seeming. But this need not be paradoxical. Once we see how the
illusion is generated, and why it persists (due to its utility for systems like
these), we can understand that it is a misrepresentation, and why such a
misrepresentation occurs.
A second possible response is that the illusion may be dispelled by
knowledge of its source. In the Buddhist tradition one sometimes encounters
the claim that when fully perfected enlightened beings exercise their
compassion, they do not cognize the unenlightened beings who are the objects
of their compassion, but nonetheless act appropriately toward them in a purely
spontaneous, intuitive fashion. One might dismiss this as the sort of hyperbole
that is often generated when devotionalist sects compete over the relative
merits of their ideal figures. But in this case there is at least something more
going on. In Yogācāra thought all conceptualization is said to be deceptive in
that it conceals the non-dual nature of reality. Since enlightened beings know
the ultimate nature of reality, it follows that their grasp of the world must be
non-conceptual. Yet unenlightened beings inhabit a world that is structured by
a set of conceptual tools. And it would seem that the enlightened can help the
unenlightened only by sharing in that distorted vision. One response to this
dilemma is to claim that enlightened beings act directly on their perception
without any intervening thought, yet their actions are ideally suited to benefit
the unenlightened. This notion of a Robo-Buddha sounds implausible, but it
might be worth looking to see if sense can be made of it in the present context.
The other-illumination theorist holds that a cognition need not itself be
cognized in order to perform its function of illuminating the object. (Note that
for the Buddhist Reductionist I have in mind, consciousness is a target for
reduction, not elimination, and so is conventionally real: they hold the other-
 BUDDHAS AS ZOMBIES: A BUDDHIST REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

illumination theory to be part of the conventional truth.22) If the cognition of a

cognition is always optional, what could be its point? A hint is to be found in
the claim (TS 2959–62) that a truly novel perception is not accepted as
veridical immediately, but only upon subsequent investigation. The context of
this claim is the dispute over whether cognitions are initially taken to be
veridical, with such credulity withdrawn only on the subsequent occurrence of
disconfirming evidence, or whether instead cognitions are only taken as
veridical upon the presentation of additional evidence. The claim here is that
whereas a perception of something familiar is taken as ‘intrinsically veridical’
(svataḥprāmāṇya), perception in a novel context is taken to be veridical only
‘extrinsically’ (parataḥprāmāṇya). This means that while the stereotyped
perception (e.g. of water in the irrigation pond one sees every day) functions
directly on the relevant sub-systems, the novel perception comes to be taken
as reliable only by being treated as a state of the system. Where we know our
way about, the sensory state is taken as putting us in direct touch with the
object (the cognition is transparent); where we are in cognitively new
territory, the sensation is taken as producing an inner representation that may
or may not be veridical, and so warrants further investigation (the cognition is
opaque). We can then say that the cognizedness of the object is the mark that
this yellow flag has gone up. We take perception to result in a cognition, an
inner subjective state, when it would enhance the performance of the system
to make perceptual content available to the fact-checker routines. But having
done so on several occasions, we can make the process fully automatic.
Seeing is like any other skill, something done deliberately and self-
consciously at first, but in time done on auto-pilot.
The claim about the Robo-Buddha might, then, be no more than a way of
saying that the skillful and highly practiced teacher will spontaneously and
effortlessly give the student just the right bit of instruction on any given
occasion. No thought being required, there is no need to generate the
otherwise useful illusion of thought–the illusion that there is a private realm of
subjectivity. For those of us who are not so skilled, it will prove useful to
acquiesce in the illusion that there is consciousness, to accept the abductive
inference as valid. But the existence of Robo-Buddhas would show that what
we acquiesce in is not part of our ultimate ontology. There is no experiencing

                                                            
22
 For a clear statement of the difference between reductionism and eliminativism about the mental, see
Kim 2004: 138. 
MARK SIDERITS

subject, not even a momentary one, nor is there the inner subjective realm.
Consciousness is only conventionally and not ultimately real. That there are
Robo-Buddhas would show that the difference between zombies and us is just
one of our taking all too seriously the merely useful device of self-
representation.23

Abbreviations

AKBh = Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu. Edited by Prahlad

Pradhan. Patna: Jayaswal Research Institute, 1975.
BCA = Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva with the commentary Pañjikā of
Prajñākaramati. Ed. P.L. Vaidya. Darbhanga, India: Mithila Institute,
1960.
PV = S. Pramāṇavārttikabhāṣya of Prajñākaragupta. Edited by R.
Sāṃkṛtyāyana. Patna: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute, 1953.
TS = Tattvasaṅgraha of Śāntarakṣita. Edited with the Pañjikā of
Kamalaśīla by Dwarkidas Sastri. Varanasi, 1968.

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23
 Dretske (2003) appeals to the evidence concerning early childhood acquisition of the concept of belief in
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true, the useful device of self-representation gives rise to the appearance of phenomenality and self-
cognition, and careful exploration of this realm can be helpful in dispelling our belief in a subject of
experience. Yogācāra would then represent a lesser form of conventional truth. 
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Index

abductive inference 322, 326, 329 boundary 69, 81, 82, 129, 252, 254
Abhidharma 116–20, 133, 141, 196, 245–7, Brahman 220
250, 251, 254, 258, 309n. 3, 313–15 Buddhism 29, 39n. 15, 115, 118, 195, 213,
adhyāsa, see superimposition 236
Advaita Vedānta 195–8, 200, 201, 204, 209– bundle theory 81, 92, 93, 109, 115, 133
13, 217–26, 236, 237
agent 86, 89, 129, 241 Campbell, J. 189
ahaṃkāra, see ‘I-maker’ Candrakīrti 171, 189, 190, 261, 264, 265
ālayavijñāna, see consciousness, store Cartesianism 124n. 20, 239
Albahari, M. 60–7, 127–30, 140, 141, clones 68
204n. 21, 218, 241 cognitive phenomenology 296
anātman, see no-self, in Buddhism cognitive science 136, 148, 257
anonymity 67 cognizedness 322, 325, 329
anosognosia 85, 105 conceptual fabrication 178, 181
Anscombe, G.E.M. 189, 190 conscious attention 176, 178, 180
antaḥkaraṇa, see internal organ consciousness, see also awareness:
AOI thesis, the 280–7 discerning 95, 97, 98
Appropriation 5, 102, 103, 128, 229, 230, formal 221
311 impermanent 96
arahant/arhat 79, 95, 104, 139, 140 intransitive 158–61, 172
Aristotle 36 as irreflexive 309, 324
Āryadeva 261 store 142–50, 178, 184n. 10, 327n. 21
Asaṅga 142, 176, 177, 180, 184, 189 conscious system 224
ātman 201n. 17, 204, 212, 218– continuity 75, 76, 142, 146, 247–50, 263,
22, 226, 228–32, 240–4 266–8
attention 112, 176, 180, 182, 210, 289, 294–8
attentional blink 124 Dainton, B. 71, 276n. 3
auto-luminosity, see self-illumination Damasio, A. 40, 411, 87, 106, 107,
autonomous systems 251–5 108n. 16, 112, 136, 140, 144, 263n. 28
autopoiesis 252, 256 Dasein 221
awareness 65n. 2, 118–22, 142–6, 148, 228, de-identification 103, 211
231, 280–90, 293, 294, 301, 315, 317 Dennett, D. 35, 37, 70, 92, 125n. 21
dependent origination 29, 30, 118, 250, 251,
Bergson, H. 71 258
bhavaṅga citta 148 depersonalization 62, 64, 85, 105
boundedness 69, 86, 102, 129 de se thought 182–184
de-superimposition 211 Fasching, W. 83, 217, 218, 302n. 40
Dharmakīrti 31–3, 47, 50, 120, 160, 288 fictionalism 251, 256, 258
dharmas 133, 245–7, 248n. 8, 250, 251, first-person 70, 94, 133, 146, 171, 179, 197,
309n. 2 218, 227, 231, 249
Dignāga 120, 160, 161, 288, 317–21, 324 first-person givenness 43–7, 50, 51, 58–60,
discerning cognition 96, 97 68, 76, 99, 101, 109, 132, 173
draṣṭā, see seer first-person perspective 33, 34, 38, 50, 59,
Dretske, F. 329n. 23 63, 67, 74, 83, 84, 95, 97–9, 190, 261–3
Dreyfus, G. 65–7, 73, 177n. 3, 184n. 10, Flanagan, O. 91, 124n. 20
269n. 33 for-me-ness 58, 59, 67, 84, 99, 100, 204n. 21
dynamic co-emergence 253
Gallagher, S. 38, 41, 268
ego 49, 52, 169–73 Ganeri, J. 65, 265, 268
egoity 221, 227–9, 231 Garfield, J. 163, 258
egological 3, 47, 48, 49n. 21, 161, 162, 169– gnoseological project 221, 228
71, 173 grāhyākāra, see objective aspect
egology 226 grāhakākāra, see subjective aspect
ego-sense 193, 209, 211 Guṇaprabhā 117n. 6
elusiveness 84, 218 Gupta, B. 83
embodied 38, 40–2, 83, 186, 240, 268, 271, Gurwitsch, A. 169
312n. 9
embodied skills 42 Heidegger, M. 69, 221, 222n. 4
embodiment 143, 226–8 Henry, M. 59
emergent process 240, 253 heteronomous systems 252, 253
emotions 71, 86, 89, 108n. 16, 137, 139, 296 higher-order consciousness 9, 32n. 9, 45, 46,
empirical apperception 219 57, 158, 161, 162, 172, 283
emptiness 255–9 Hobson, R.P. 67
enactive 251, 255, 259, 268 Hume, D. 81, 87, 90, 108, 115, 299n. 33
enactivism 239 Husserl, E. 28, 58, 71–74, 121n. 14, 152,
encephalitis 40 158, 159, 163–9, 221, 266–8, 280, 283
enlightenment 64, 80, 223, 224 Hutto, D. 34
epileptic automatism 64, 106, 107, 112
erroneous cognition 228 identification 5, 61–3, 85–7, 102–4, 108,
experience 109–11, 117, 121–8, 131–4, 138, 128, 129, 183, 185, 210n. 29, 229
144, 147–52, 158, 161 identity 33, 52, 66, 74–6, 86, 87, 90, 91,
experience condition 95–99, 101, 110, 111 102, 104, 131, 132, 185, 229, 252, 259,
extended consciousness 40, 72 286, 320
extrinsic nature 246, 250 diachronic 75, 103, 198, 205, 243
illusion 62, 88, 124, 128, 327, 329
 of self 60, 64, 79–82, 89, 91, 94, 102–8, MacIntyre, A. 35–7, 136
131, 193, 223, 256 MacKenzie, M. 102, 169n. 8, 190n. 13,
illusory 60–4, 72, 88, 91–3, 107, 109–11 195n. 3
imagination 90, 91, 108, 164 Madhyamaka 161n. 4, 162, 163, 195n.3, 251,
‘I-maker’ 30–4, 209, 227, 249, 250, 261, 257–65, 309, 316n. 11
268 manas, see mind
immunity to error through misidentification materialism 274
13, 180, 188, 200n. 12, 320 eliminative 107, 109
indexical 231, 261 meditation 103, 112, 114, 125n. 22, 326
individuality 51, 221, 226, 232 memory 73, 74, 132, 136, 161–74, 198, 248,
individuation 67, 68, 229 261, 321–3
in-each-case-mineness 222 memory argument 161–74, 321–23
‘I’-ness 219 memory loss 40, 106, 200
infinite regress 31, 32, 57, 72, 181, 281, 321 mental construct 90, 108
intentionality 157, 160 mental construction 107, 108, 121
longitudinal 267 Merleau–Ponty, M. 28, 74, 152, 158
transverse 267, 268 Metaphysics 80, 151, 152, 225, 277, 287,
internal organ 230, 231 301
intrinsic nature 30, 50, 234, 246, 250, 251, Metzinger, T. 50, 70, 97, 126, 208n. 28, 217,
258, 260, 286 221–6, 232, 236
invariability 61, 87, 90, 129, 241 micro-narratives 42, 43
ipseity 49n. 21, 58, 169, 172, 173, 181 Mīmāṃsā 220, 225, 227, 228, 235, 236
‘I’-thoughts 227 mind 59, 80–2, 90, 95, 97, 104, 105, 111,
114–16, 118–20, 123, 142, 151–3,
James, W. 69n. 4, 71, 82, 91, 100, 118, 133, 176, 177, 230–2, 292
137, 266, 287, 291, 298n. 31 mithyājñānam, see erroneous cognition
jemeinigkeit 222 mode of presentation 38, 45, 59, 68, 182, 183
jīva 209, 221, 222, 230 momentary 5, 94, 96, 236, 248, 266, 313
jñāna 200, 203 Montaigne, M. 67

Kant, I. 31n. 8, 205n. 21, 218, 219, 232n. Nāgārjuna 264

10, 284, 301 narrative constitution 36, 41
Kriegel, U. 31 narrative enhancement 36
Krueger, J. 73n. 5, 82, 182n. 9, 269n. 33, 271 narratives 34–9, 41, 43, 48, 52, 136, 269,
Kumārila 227 270
narrativity 43
lakṣyārtha, see secondary meaning Neisser, U. 34, 69
liberation 193, 213, 227–9 neonatal imitation 40, 42, 268
life-world 70 nirvana, possibility of 80, 104, 111, 112
non-egological 3, 49, 50, 162, 169– pathology 62, 64, 67, 102, 105, 107, 112
73, 308, 309 persistence 71, 74, 91, 177, 207, 243
nonlinear interactions 254 person 30, 37–41, 73, 87n. 7, 94, 115–18,
non-thetic 9, 279, 280, 286–91, 296, 297, 127, 131–4, 139, 140, 196–8, 209, 219–
302 22, 228–30, 240–47, 251, 255–
no-self 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 49, 73n. 5, 81, 91, 58, 269, 310–13, 319
115–18, 126, 225 personal identity 37, 73n. 6, 81, 84–7, 185,
doctrine of 30, 61, 64, 65, 92, 104, 125, 219, 220, 222, 240, 247, 313
134 reductionist view of 196, 262
in Buddhism 30, 81, 97, 103, 104, 134, perspectival 99, 224, 226, 241, 318, 327
135, 168, 195, 196, 240, 245, 309, phenomenal absence 164
310 phenomenal awareness 43
Nyāya 120n. 10, 198, 220, 225, 228, 229, phenomenal consciousness 33, 44, 47, 49,
234, 235, 249, 313, 321 224, 225
phenomenality 44, 222–5, = 234, 235, 309,
object: 329 n. 15
of experience 12, 22, 49, 83 phenomenological content 226, 233
experienced 121, 209 phenomenology 28, 45, 98, 100, 101, 111n.
objective aspect 31, 32n. 10, 121, 318 18, 135, 220–3, 231
observational component 83, 94–8, 100, 101 physicalist reduction of self 223
operational closure 252, 265 Plato 223
organizational closure 252, 253, 265, 269 pramātā, see subject of knowledge
other-illumination 9–11, 158, 321– Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika 162, 163, 260
4, 326, 328 pratītya-samutpāda, see dependent
owner 59, 91, 220, 223, 241–4, 310 origination
personal 61, 82, 84–7, 102, 103, 108, pre-reflective self-awareness 32, 56, 57, 59–
111, 128, 129 61, 67, 120, 126, 158–60, 169, 173, 180,
perspectival 81, 84–7, 101–3, 108–11, 263, 270
ownership 80, 83, 218, 232 presence 59, 60, 63, 66, 68, 69, 108, 111,
personal 61, 62, 84–6, 102, 105–7, 112 136, 139, 141, 150, 201–
perspectival 63, 66, 85, 105–7, 147 12, 219, 221, 224–6, 233–
possessive 61 35, 275,276, 292, 299
presentational 164
Pali Buddhism 80, 88, 95, 102 proprioception 40, 41
Pali Canon 80, 81, 130n. 26, 218 pudgala,see person
parabhāva,see extrinsic nature pure consciousness experience 293, 299,
parataḥprāmāṇya, see veridicality, extrinsic 302–4
Pārthasārathi Miśra 227 puruṣa 193
pathological impairments 85, 106 qualia 45, 123
Ram–Prasad, C. 212n.32 Sayādaw, V. M. 94, 95, 98
reality 12, 220, 236 Schechtman, M. 37, 41–3
Recanati, F. 182–4 Scheler, M. 152, 204
recursivity 266, 271 Searle, J. 117, 148, 149, 297n. 29
Reddy, V. 67 secondary meaning 232
reduction: seer 194, 211, 212, 226, 229
ontological 316, 319, 329n. 23 self:
semantic 316 autobiographical 40, 106, 136
reductionism 202, 240n. 1, Buddhist-enactivist theory of 269, 270
Buddhist 88, 198, 245–50, 254, 262, core 106, 136, 137, 140, 221
310, 311, 323 ecological 34, 67, 69
reflexive 92–4, 98–102, 109 experiential 40, 56–62, 67–
mereological 250, 251, 311, 314, 321 70, 73n. 6, 74–76, 194, 198, 206, 207,
non-reflexive 92–94, 96–98 210, 212, 257, 262–4
reflective self-consciousness 32, 57, 120, extended 34, 39, 40, 136, 139, 222, 225n.
170, 284, 299n. 33, 322 6, 228, 229, 268
reflexive awareness 160–3, 167–9, 171 formal 51, 52, 69, 218, 220–22, 236
thesis 1, 2, 8–14, 160, 161, 166, 167, as ‘I’-making 268, 270, 271
308, 309 inauthentic 221, 222n. 4, 229, 230
reflexive pronoun 182, 226, 227, 229 individual 64, 223, 225, 226, 232, 236
reflexivity 57, 65, 67, 121, 122, 160, 172, minimal 28, 29, 34, 38, 40–53, 84, 181,
219, 233, 235, 250, 285, 318–20 182, 222, 225, 236, 257, 260–3, 265–
reification 50, 66, 100, 125, 131, 250, 251, 9
262, 309 narrative 6, 14, 34–41, 52, 269, 270, 311
re-presentational 164 performativist theory of 265
representationalism 10–12, 160, 317 proto 136, 143, 144
Ricoeur, P. 36n. 12, 76n. 7 qua principle of identity 48, 66
Rochat, P. 67 as substance 4–12, 59, 71, 74, 118, 151,
239, 259, 260, 314
sākṣin, see witness unified 63, 66, 127, 133, 220, 226, 257
Sāṃkhya 177n. 3, 314, 315 as virtual 240, 255–9
saṃsāra 3, 241, 269 self-appropriation 102, 264, 265, 268, 269
Śaṅkara 223, 226, 229, 236 self-ascription 3, 180, 181
Śāntaraksita 161, 162 self-awareness 30–33, 158, 168, 179, 180,
Śāntideva 163 193, 209, 280–6
śarīratva, see embodiment minimal 40
Sartre, J.‐P. 28, 44n. 18, 56–9, 126, 158, non-thetic 287–91
159, 169–73, 180, 181, 250, 283 present moment 274, 278–81, 285–
Sautrāntika 120, 309, 317 7, 291–5, 300, 302
 reflexive 31, 32, 39, 161, 162, 172 stream of consciousness 46, 48, 49, 51, 65,
thetic 288–90, 294, 295, 300, 302 68, 72, 74–6, 93, 118, 146, 160, 169, 199,
self-cognition 120, 160–2 267, 268
self-consciousness 41, 49n. 21, 56, 57, 133, subject:
158, 160, 177, 178, 193, 223, 233, experiencing 65, 118, 195, 198, 209, 241,
234, 249, 285 319, 329
self-givenness 56–60, 73, 74, 99, 126, minimal 84, 92, 101, 110
128, 130–4, 197, 199 of experience 4, 12, 38, 39, 49, 64, 83,
selfhood 28, 35–38, 49 n. 12, 57–9, 67, 69, 98, 101, 102, 127, 147, 168, 169, 185,
76n. 7, 136, 169, 172, 218–228, 235, 190, 195, 221, 224, 241, 275–7, 288,
243, 270, 287 291, 292, 319, 320
individuated 226 ‘thin’ 276, 277, 319, 320
self-identity 36, 76, 85, 104, 132 subjective aspect 31, 32n. 10, 121, 318
self-illumination 9–13, 30–4, 39, 49, 120, subjectivity 29, 30, 33, 38, 50–2, 66–69,
160, 197–9, 201, 233, 234, 250, 263, 270, 101, 115–17, 122–27, 130,
285, 320, 322 131, 136, 141–52, 168, 169, 209, 226,
self-localization 209, 210 235, 237, 270, 275, 308, 309, 318,
self-model 34, 39, 52, 225 319, 324, 327
self-organizing systems 253 of experience 49, 60, 64, 69, 100, 197–99,
self-reflexivity 31–3, 39, 46, 47, 50 224, 232
self-representation 138, 329 subject-object duality 122
sense of self 3, 14, 27, 33, 34, 61–3, 71, 80, subject of knowledge 234
82, 89, 106, 107, 108n. 16, 112, śūnyatā, see emptiness
130, 134–39, 145, 149 superimposition 210, 211, 261, 329n.23
Sharf, R. 151, 152 Sureśvara 229, 231, 232, 234
Shoemaker, S. 179, 319 svabhāva, see intrinsic nature
Siderits, M. 96n. 10, 97 svaprakāśa, see self-illumination
Skandhas 176n. 1, 196n. 5, 213, 242–4, 260, svasaṃvedana,see self-illumination
264 svataḥprāmāṇya see veridicality, intrinsic
Soteriology 3, 8, 70, 81, 207, 209, 302n. 40, synthesis 108, 126, 176, 315
312 diachronic 314
specious present 87, 93, 99, 110
Śrīdhara 248, 249n. 9, 266, 268 temporality 72, 75, 159, 268n.32
Stern, D. N. 67 ‘the having is the knowing’ 296
Sthiramati 176n.3, 185 Theravāda 119, 142n. 41, 148
Strawson, G. 28n.2, 34, 73, 84, 87n. 7, 101, thetic 9, 279, 280, 288–91, 293–302
126, 135, 187, 188, 197, thinker 86, 88, 91, 92, 103, 182, 184, 241,
241, 319, 320, 324 291
Strawson, P. F. 180, 185, 189 ‘thin’ subject,see subject, ‘thin’
Thompson, E. 99, 252–4, 259, 262n. 24, 322 Wilde, O. 68
time-consciousness 72, 159, 160, 169, 266, Williams, P. 163, 171, 320n. 15
267, 270 Witness 5, 83, 94, 110, 123, 127, 128, 194,
inner 72 203, 204n. 21, 315
transparency 125, 208, 225, 235, 297n. 30 witness-consciousness 62–4, 82, 83, 93, 103,
truth 275 108, 111, 128, 194, 195, 204n. 21,
conventional 246 213, 218
ultimate 246, 320 witnessing 5, 83, 102, 128, 194, 201, 203,
Tsongkhapa 129n. 24, 260–5, 268 204n. 21, 213, 241, 314
two tiered illusion of self 103–5, 107, 111 Wittgenstein, L. 186, 188
two uses of “I” 186–90
Yoga 193
Uddyotakara 249, 260 Yogācāra 116, 117, 121, 123, 143–
Unbrokenness 61, 87, 91, 92, 103, 107, 108 50, 184n. 10, 197–9, 317, 318, 328
unconstructed 62, 65n. 2, 69, 86, 88, 91, 92, Yogācāra–Sautrāntika 309, 317
103, 107–9
unconstructedness 64, 65n. 2, 69, 87, 88 Zahavi, D. 28, 44–51, 82, 84, 99–
unified 41, 47, 60, 61, 81–3, 86, 88, 93–5, 100, 110, 111, 116, 117, 126–127, 130–
98, 103, 108, 110, 125, 148, 149, 202, 133, 135, 173, 181–182, 184, 204 n. 21,
203, 237, 256, 267 207 n. 26, 217–218, 221–222, 224–226,
unity 6, 40, 42, 61, 90–3, 103, 108, 127, 232–233, 236, 269
139, 198, 202–6 Zhayba, J. 130n. 25
diachronic 5, 71, 72, 74, 81, 87, 92, 100, zombies 329
110, 111, 127, 131–3, 199  
of consciousness 48, 72, 87, 218–20,
233, 235, 236
synchronic 72, 81, 87, 92, 100, 147–9,
202
upādāna, see appropriation

Vaiśeṣika 186, 248

Varela, F. 240, 252, 255–9, 263
Vasubandhu 119, 176–90, 244, 245, 249,
254, 314
Velleman, M. 85, 219
veridicality:
extrinsic 328
intrinsic 328
vikalpa, see conceptual fabrication